


The Claims We Make

by GrumpyBones



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Bones has HAD IT, Everyone is yelling at them all the time, Five Year Mission, Hurt Jim, I'm sure the laundry department on the enterprise is quite competent in reality, Idiots in Love, Jim may be attracted to chalk, M/M, Slow Burn, Spock is dumb boy, Uhura is a space goddess, abuse of chess, read to find out, that no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 02:59:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 50,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19142194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyBones/pseuds/GrumpyBones
Summary: The one in which Spock is a sap with a secret tattoo, a tattoo that Jim istotallynot hyper-fixating on, and the rest of the crew is definitely placing bets on whether or not they'll get it together before Bones' blood pressure explosion takes out the entire ship.You know, a love story.





	1. Jim

**Author's Note:**

> So, first and foremost, I want to thank the mods at [the star trek reverse bang](https://startrekreversebang.tumblr.com/) for organizing all of this. I'm so excited to be a part of it.
> 
> And secondly, HUGE space hug to my artist [hanguhns](https://hanghuhns.tumblr.com/) over at tumblr. You're an amazing artist who never once threatened to kill me, and you really ought to have. You're a very talented saint and I adore you.
> 
> <3 Enjoy y'all

_‘There’s always a down side,’_ a voice in his head, that sounds suspiciously like Bones, announces into the vastness of his boredom.

It’s exciting normally, at least _sometimes,_ to be the Captain of the Fleet’s uncontested flagship. Five year missions, strange new worlds, the literal front lines of the great unknown. When the general grounded population thinks of space they can, unwittingly, allow the beauty of it to be swallowed up by an overwhelming mental picture of all the blackness out there.

Jim’s leading lady has been flung from speck to speck, pinballed from rock to rock over the last four years. It’s been a rollercoaster of both under and overwhelms as they've taken in what they can of the Milky Way, never forgetting how minuscule a portion of that map they’ve actually charted. His crewmates, and their Captain, know better than most how full the universe really is.

It can be frustrating, unbelievably exhausting, it has even been _boring_ — but none of those stack up against how goddamn exhilarating life can be aboard his girl.

But Bones, as always, is right. There is, of course, a downside.

The title of _Flagship_ means they carry with them an air of prestige, an extraneous reputation earned from the basic idea that size and power automatically correlates to esteem. Jim wouldn’t mind so much, never having boasted the spotlight to be an enemy of his, if only that prestige didn’t come with the bonus of Starfleet thinking a ship with a population greater than some cities should be reduced to shuttling diplomats like an oversized taxi. Being rolled out like a two thousand ton red carpet every time an Earth ambassador needs to find their way across the galaxy to a Fleet conference wasn’t exactly on the recruitment flier.

It’s silly, and wasteful, and an unavoidable tagline in a usually more enjoyable plot.

As they crawl across the galaxy, Jim solemnly swears that if they ever corner him into accepting a promotion that he’ll just hitchhike to Agregan VII like any unselfish soul would and save some poor Captain the trouble of being polite about it.

 _Five more days of this,_ Jim sighs. Five days, surrounded by a near armada of security ships, ensuring that even Kirk’s normal shade of luck won't be enough to make things slightly interesting, all while cruising at school zone speeds.

Idle has never been a good look on Jim. He decides in an instant that a distraction may be an ever increasing necessity, lest he get himself into trouble for the sole sake of having something to do.

Distraction has adopted a sole translation in the land of Kirk. There’s a part of him, a small one, that at least wants to feel bad about it. However, it’s hard to embrace the sympathetic sentiment when it's really at _least_ half his First Officer’s fault for being so damn entertaining. Jim is in the draft stages of a plan, still choosing between the two equally delightful: Intentionally, wildly, mispronouncing the name of their planetary destination or asking the Vulcan an extremely specific question about a species that doesn't even exist, when he starts the swivel in his chair. He decides, at the last moment, to go with an old favorite.

“Mr. Spock, please scan the area for—” a familiar pain in his neck that twinges at the angle he forces it to stretch in order to see the science station.

Only he doesn't see it. He might, for a second, the visual getting lost in the manual reboot his brain seems to be conducting. There’s a glimpse, a brief one, a preview if you will, that his subconscious seems to hand over with timid restraint. As if the different sections of his mind are passing the photo around with an incredulous, _Are you seeing this too?_

He blinks a few times, the sight in front of him remaining. He takes a quick glance around the Bridge as a whole where the rest of the crew continue on with their duties. They either refuse to notice or simply don’t care about the sight being presented to the Captain’s right.

He tells himself that his eyes need to return to the viewscreen even as they snap back to the section of skin peeking out between the black pants and the science-blue uniform shirt. The top has ridden up his spine, just so, revealing a glimpse of swirling script inscribed on the olive tinted strip of Spock’s lower back.

 _Spock has a tattoo,_ the tone of his inner dialogue missing the mark of simple shock as he swivels the chair back into proper position, a strange sense of hurt rumbling beneath a blanket of pure disbelief, _Spock has a tattoo and he didn’t tell me._

He shakes his head, pressing his eyes closed against that thought. It isn’t like the post of First Officer is only offered with the return of signed guarantee that an inclusive autobiography will follow. Vulcans are notorious for being overly private and Spock has very publicly declared himself to be of that nature. The fact that Jim finds it surprising at all to not have already known about this is proof enough that Spock has more than tried to be open with him. And he has, he _has._

Sharing childhood traumas over forgotten chess games and baring confessions of lifelong anxieties in the stillness of the witching hours don’t automatically translate to someone being an open book. Just because Spock spends each anniversary of Vulcan’s demise in Jim’s quarters watching old holos and just because Spock baked Jim one of Amanda Grayson’s infamous apple pies for his birthday, belated only due to lack of stove access, and just because Spock had laughed, real and full and unrefined, the time he tried to teach Jim to waltz… just because Jim wants it to mean something, it doesn’t mean that it does.

It’s when Spock finally turns around, tired of simply waiting for the end of that order, eyebrows knitted together as he wonders the hopelessness of humanity that Jim, finally, returns to reality. He nearly breaks his damn chair with the force he rights it with.

 _You’re an idiot, Jim Kirk. Just because you feel—_

“Time until we reach our destination?” He asks out loud, abruptly, in a voice that mostly sounds like something vital in him has just been chucked against a wall to cover up Spock’s weaker, _“Captain?”_.

Ignoring Sulu’s playful indignance as he answers, “4 days, 17 hours, and 34 minutes, Sir. A whole 10 minutes less than when you asked me 10 minutes ago.”

Because.

Spock has a tattoo.

 

* * *

  
_Art by[hanghuhns](https://hanghuhns.tumblr.com/)_ 

* * *

 

“And I’m supposed to care about this, why?” Is Bones’ unhelpful, and predictable, reaction.

“You don’t think it’s peculiar?” Jim presses back against the obvious indifference. “Even a little bit? A Vulcan walking around with a tattoo? That doesn’t sound even the slightest bit unusual to you?”

“I think it sounds like none of my goddamn business,” adding, “What about Spock hasn’t been unusual? The guy is a walking green-blooded museum of oddities.”

“Is that your _professional_ opinion, Doctor?” Suddenly realizing, “Huh, is that why you find this so unsurprising? Have you seen it during his annuals?”

“Not that I could tell you if I had, but no,” and Jim doesn’t have time to argue about the boundaries of patient-physician confidentiality extending to what he _doesn’t_ know when, “Why are you turning this into Sunday morning’s headline? You wouldn’t give one hoot if you were to find out I was walking around with a tattoo on my ass.”

“It wasn’t on his —”

“I know it wasn’t because you’re still breathing. If you’d finally found the testis to do something about getting a glimpse of his,” whatever sound Jim makes sounds is far from voluntary, “then I’d be scraping you off of the floorboards.”

“I’m not dignifying that with a response,” Bones mumbling back something that sounds suspiciously like, _'cause you know I’m right._ “Besides, I know you don’t have a tattoo,” there’s a smug smirk answering him, Bones only raising an eyebrow as he waits out Jim’s confidence, “Wait, you do?”

Leonard McCoy has never looked so entirely pleased with himself before.

“No, I don’t, but I don’t see you shitting crickets over the idea that I might. So we’ll backpedal a bit and revisit my previous question: Why are you going to hell in a handbasket over this?”

“I'm just curious, Bones,” and it may have sounded believable if only Jim could believe himself. “If it were something worth knowing about I’m sure that he’d tell me himself.”

He’s almost dropped the borderline compulsory, _Spock has a tattoo,_ inner mantra by the time he replicates dinner. Almost.

 

* * *

 

Being so quiet in the turbo lift isn’t an active decision on his part.

The silence is doing him exactly no favors as Spock’s suspicion clearly increases with each side eye Kirk catches the Vulcan sliding his way, clearly noting that reticence isn’t exactly Jim's normal morning trend. The backhanded compliment, _‘Your ability to always find something you deem worthy of saying is fascinating,’_ a personal favorite of the Vulcan’s. He knows his Captain too well for Kirk to try to play the I’m-Just-Tired card.

Spock has seen him nearing the 50 straight hours without sleep mark, babbling away about warp core mechanics to keep himself awake. He’s been present for just about every shocking turn of events an away mission has crafted, watching the way Kirk’s first defense has never been retreat or counters but a well spun sentence. Spock has seen him angry and devastated and in just about every stage of panic the brain can supply but he’s never seen Jim with nothing to say, only with something he _refuses_ to. It's an important distinction, with one conclusion: The only time Jim opts for self induced silence is in the name of censorship, when _nothing_ leans further in his favor than whatever the alternative is.

Surely he could manage to find a million different topics worthy of discussion at this moment. He tries to take solace in the fact that he, at least, is not too far gone yet to realize how ridiculous it is that he can’t seem to pick one.

Jim allows himself to wonder, not for the first time, how the two of them always seem to manage to end up in this tight space together despite it being a crew-communal lift.

“I have received no communications about any incidents occurring on board the ship or complaints from our passengers. Yet you appear to be stressed, Captain.”

It’s not exactly a question, may not even be an accusation, but it isn’t a simple statement either.

Spock has begun to guess Jim’s chess strategy with disconcerting accuracy. Their early-mission play had been skewed in Kirk’s favor, mostly accredited to his rash methods. He’d been unpredictable, and _human,_ perplexing the Vulcan into an impressive collection of defeats. Though time had worked to level the playing field. As Jim himself had shifted from conundrum to friend, both of their approaches had been forced to adapt in response to the newfound familiarity. Jim’s had settled into something of a disciplined brand of chaos and Spock, well, he had learned to be shocking in his boldness.

Only, recently, the winning record had been swaying further and further away from Jim’s column — with Spock guessing his movements three steps ahead of Kirk’s planning them.

Spock has begun finishing his sentences in the mess hall, a habit which both delights and horrifies Bones. The percentage that he’s been able to accurately work out Kirk’s Plan B with nothing but a glance across a negotiation table ripe with tension has reached an alarmingly high rate. Jim can’t even count the number of times a blue tunic has appeared in his peripheral just as his fingers have begun gripping the rests of the command chair, before Jim himself knew that he required reassurance.

Until now it had been, if he’s being honest, a growing source of contentment to know that Spock has cared enough to try to calculate him out. With every correctly guessed scheme, on or off of a chessboard, a spot inside of Jim that he’s tried not to poke at had grown incrementally warmer. But Spock seeing _this?_ What would happen were he to know just how many hours of sleep Jim has missed because he decided to spend the first half of his night arguing with the computer about Vulcan script? That the second had been spent trying to reason out a more sensible explanation behind his racing pulse and free falling stomach than the simple act of recalling the sight of Spock’s lower back? How it’s much more pleasant, if not at all helpful, to imagine tracing those lines with his fingers instead of the tablet sketch pad?

As far as Kirk’s concerned, Spock only needed the passing of one look before he was able to deduce the dubious reality of the situation. So if Jim should actually try to converse as normal? He may as well dig his own grave while he’s at it.

He’s just not taking any chances is all.

“Hmmm?” Horribly feigning confusion, “Oh, just lost in my head, Spock. I think the tedium of this mission has eaten away at the better half of my brain.”

Jim refuses to look at him despite feeling Spock’s gaze burning into the side of his face. He’s counting down the seconds until the lift will slow, the humming cease, and the doors will open and release him from the tension winding up between them. Praying that even a Vulcan can take a hint sometimes.

The very moment he allows himself to be convinced that Spock isn’t going to push the subject is the moment that he, of course, does.

“I understand that my species’ inclination towards logic may make me a less than ideal candidate for discussing issues of a personal nature. However, as a friend, I wish to remind you that my habit of distancing myself from my own emotions does not correlate to my desire to speak of yours.”

There’s a lot he should be saying, and even more that he wants to, but the whirl of the lift is already dying down and he knows the doors will open to a bustling Bridge. The privacy he was just begging to be released from will be gone when he needs it the most.

Jim reaches out to grab Spock’s sleeved forearm, hoping he can say in touch what he can’t in words. Watching the trajectory of Kirk’s hand, Spock leans so minisculely into the contact the way he always does, as if giving Jim permission to once again disrespect the Vulcan’s simple request for personal space. The harsher angles in his face ease as Jim steps closer, Kirk’s wrist protesting the way he forces it to bend, refusing to let go even as the distances between their shoulders drops to inches.

“I know,” he finally gets out, hoping he sounds as sure as he feels, “and as soon as I feel an emotion worth sharing, you’ll be wishing that you hadn’t offered.”

“We shall see.”

Jim’s tongue presses against the back of his teeth as a grin breaks through his best efforts to stifle it, never growing fully immune to Spock’s teasing.

He waits for the telltale whine of their arrival, the three clicks that note the lift clamping into place sounding off before Kirk begins leaning in, close enough that his words will fall directly into pointed ears.

“And don’t think that overworked sentiment about you not having emotions doesn’t still smell like the bullshit it is. You’re a sap deep down, and one day I’ll prove it.”

There’s just enough time for Spock’s head to tilt, his eyebrow to raise, and to thoroughly stare Jim down before whatever his retort may have been is lost in a sea of beeping from the ship’s control boards as the doors open, freeing them.

 

* * *

 

Kirk devotes the first quarter hour in the chair to convincing himself that he isn’t going to spend the entire shift peeking over his right shoulder every five minutes.

Which means, of course, that he spends most of his morning averaging a span of half that time between glimpses. It should be more of a concern, he thinks, how normal it feels despite the very unnatural twist he has to demand of his spine to catch the sight. The constant complaint in the side of his neck and the middle of his back has definitely, thoroughly, found explanation in this. They protest in ache with every awkward torsion he demands of his trapezius to accomplish each glance backwards, leaving him wondering how much of his daily routine is spent curled towards the science station instead of the view screen. A lot, if his muscles have any input on the diagnosis.

 _I’m only looking for confirmation,_ he tells himself, and there’s a small part of him that maybe believes it. The whole scene from yesterday ringing a bit to the tune of a boredom induced hallucination. _If I just see it again, without the shock of never having seen it before, then I can finally stop thinking about it._ It’s a theory, at least.

Only Spock has chosen today of all days to get acquainted with his actual chair. It leaves Jim once again doing some impressive mental gymnastics in order to not deal with the fact that he knows with almost Spock-like precision the percentage of times he’s more likely to find him hunched over the desk. By noon, when Spock still hasn’t been caught leaning over his console, leaving his seat only once to confer with Cadet O’Brien at the engineering station, Kirk knows with certainty that it’s unusual enough to be intentional.

 _God,_ he thinks, _How much time do you waste staring at him? You’re the Captain of a constitution class vessel. Surely you should have better things to do._

He’s still duel battling against the impulse to look and the urge to panic over both the utility of his captaincy and his brutal lack of self awareness, when a shipwide comm comes in around the shift’s halfway mark from laundry services.

“A mix up in our system,” it reads, “has resulted in several incorrect tunic deliveries on deck 5. If you have been affected and would like to pick up your assigned uniforms before next week’s delivery, please come see us on deck 8 at your convenience.”

Kirk has a quip planned about Bones’ legs in one of the skant uniforms that’s about to roll off of his tongue before pausing, wanting to see Spock’s overt revulsion at both the thought and possibly at Jim himself for having it. Only the words get caught behind a lump in his throat when he swivels, the sight of Spock looming over his scanner in a shirt Jim now realizes is just slightly the wrong size causing the verbal traffic jam.

The sleeves come all the way to his wrists, his slight shoulders pulling the neck wider just slightly, and Jim can see, now that he’s shamelessly staring, that it hugs him too tightly around the chest. It doesn’t become blatant until you get to the hem itself which must fall several inches short, all the more obvious as Spock bows over the instrument, pulling it past the waistband of his trousers.

Without the jolt that had come with his initial viewing, he’s left with significantly more brain cells to appreciate it this time around. The sight is worth enjoying, for more than Jim’s less than enlightened reasons, the design quite gracefully filling the territory of Spock’s lower back.

It’s Vulcan script, he’s absolutely sure despite his slowness to learn it, though not for lack of trying. It’s been over a year and he can barely claim to be conversationally sound in spoken Vulcan, script barely making it through the front gates of possibility before it had put on the back burner. The curves, swoops, and swirls had proven a little too alien for him compared to the few other languages he can pen. It had quickly become clear that mastering it would take a fair amount of effort on his part. Effort he fully planned on investing.

He had been taken with it immediately. What it occasionally lacked in audible beauty it more than made up for visually — only slightly less so in the amended way Spock had him practice writing it in left to right format instead of the traditional vertical positioning, hoping the small added familiarity would help. It hadn’t, or worse, maybe it had. Though, he admits, the horizontal arrangement of the soft arches and whorls look alluringly at home on the plane of Spock’s otherwise angled frame. It’s in a handwritten style, he can even see from halfway across the Bridge its lack of perfection, ensuring it is not merely a computer generated font. Jim takes a second to wonder whether it’s in Spock’s own penmanship, the scrollwork not quite resembling the preciseness he remembers his First Officer’s possessing.

He’s trying to decipher the exact coloring, perhaps a shade of brown like roasted chestnuts or maybe an auburn. It’s hard to tell from this distance, and he’s trying, desperately, to commit the sight to memory so he can —

“Captain?” Jim turns back around to find Sulu’s holding up a padd in his direction. The helmsman looks thoroughly thrilled, his delight devoid of any surprise at his Captain’s attention being found where it was. “Have you seen this?”

His Captain’s account receives a second communication from the laundry department, allowing him to bury whatever his facial expressions are doing in a more detailed description of the uniform sorting malfunction and their steps to correct it.

“I’m sure the rest of the ship is just as thrilled as you are,” trying, at least, to make it sound like a rebuke.

“I am now trying not to imagine Mr. Scott in a crop top!” Chekov happily adds to the conversation, plowing over Kirk’s softhanded disapproval.

“McCoy in a skant!” Sulu cracks, unknowingly stealing Jim’s joke.

The bridge falls momentarily silent when Uhura, to the shock of everyone, contributes, “Keenser in a 3XL,” before falling back into fits of giggles.

Professionalism has been thoroughly tossed to the wind and Jim would gladly add his fuel to the fodder if only he could conjure a single mental image more appealing than the one he knows is standing behind him. _Spock in a men’s size small,_ not exactly of the vibe his current crowd is playing at.

“Captain?” Jim turns once again, at least this time with cause, to find Spock standing just past his right shoulder, arms pressed into his lower back.

“Oh, let them have their fun, Spock. There’s no harm in it,” gearing himself up for a friendly debate that will most likely run longer than the subject which has inspired it.

Only he ignores Kirk completely, probably finding acknowledgement too close to agreeing, as he asks in a low volume the rest of the crew is likely to miss, “Would you excuse me momentarily to consult with the laundry department as I am among the affected?” Adding at Jim’s lack of immediate response, “I have run a complete scan of our area and have found no reason to think I will be needed. However, should our situation change, I will be back shortly.”

It takes Jim a minute to find his voice under a pyramid of disappointment. “No, I mean yes, I mean of course, Mr. Spock,” his Science Officer continuing to stare back at him. “I’ll comm you directly should I manage to find some trouble for us,” he jokes while desperately wishing he could find a single reason to tell the clothing crew to deny the request or order maintenance to halt lift travel in the tubes that run between deck 1 and 8.

Spock returns in only 15 minutes, thoroughly covered and Jim, most definitely, isn’t pouting about it.

 

* * *

 

Bones and Spock are well into their best attempt at turning agreeing with each other into a debate when Kirk gets within earshot of their table. Today’s dinner discussion topic is the happenings of what Jim has started referring to as ‘The Incestuous Political Nightmare of the Ritrus Nebula’. Leonard's voice is dripping with sarcasm, Spock's burning sharply cold, as they both grow more indignant at the other's refusal to disagree.

_If you two could just concede that fighting with each other ranks inappropriately high on your respective lists of favorite past times then, maybe, the rest of us could eat in peace._

Jim’s about to say something along the lines of just that when he finally catches sight, 10 feet away, of his already occupied seat next to Spock. Well, not his seat, per say. Just the one he happens to sit in for every meal, the one which just happens to be next to the one his First Office seems to prefer. But not his.

He’s already sliding into the one next to Bones when the Orion woman in science blues finally notices him. She sits up just a hair straighter, fingers finding the edges of her food tray, as she offers apologetically, “Oh Captain, I can move!”

Jim can only see Bones in the very edges of his peripheral, though it’s enough to paint a vivid picture of how amusing he finds the current situation.

“Don’t be ridiculous, the cafeteria doesn’t have assigned seats,” he waves her off, a voice beside him muttering, _‘Then how does she know she’s in yours?,’_ too loudly for his comfort.

Once Kirk finishes glaring at Bones, Spock catches his eye trying to convey something that looks to Jim like a reluctant acceptance. Though, he’ll admit to himself, that it may just be him self-projecting his own opinion on the situation. Kirk shrugs back with a half smile, as he holds out one of the two cups of tea on his tray.

Bones is trying to reignite his tirade on why the Vulcan is somehow wrong for agreeing with him on the inherent instabilities of monarchy-based governments, even as Spock blatantly ignores him, accepting the beverage from Jim.

“You do not have to keep replicating me Vulcan tea for every meal, Captain. Though it is appreciated.”

“It isn’t exactly a burden. Though I _actually_ wouldn’t have to if you would just be willing to order it for yourself.”

“I was made aware, by _you,_ that you programmed the beverage into the system yourself without following protocol and going through the administration. It would only encourage your behaviour should I partake knowing that you have not added it via the proper channels.”

“And let the code sit on some desk for three months when there’s no excuse for it not being standard in the replicators?” Jim snorts. “Besides, you drink it every time. How is that not partaking?”

Whatever Spock may have responded is lost when his attention is diverted, suddenly, back to the original discussion. The conversation that Kirk, he reminds himself, had interrupted and not the other way around.

“Your point is only defendable so long as you maintain the belief that greed is inherent to all sentient lifeforms the same way it is to humans. Yes, a non-democracy based government is almost guaranteed to be corrupted by a society that is able to so thoroughly corrupt a government based _in_ democracy. But you’re suggesting that every species, implicently, desires the same thing,” the crewmember, Ensign McGoff, he tells himself, not sure where his civility has gone, counter argues, rejoining the debate Jim is now only realizing that she had been an active participant in.

An unpleasant feeling has already started to brew in his stomach, one he knows is derived from an ignoble source even as he tells himself it only originated coincidentally with _his_ seat being stolen.

“A quite logical rebuttal in an otherwise irrational discussion,” and Jim’s stomach protests at the compliment, despite knowing it only exists to serve as a disguised insult to Bones. “While I must agree with the Doctor that a government’s intentions can only benefit from sovereignty belonging to its citizens, you make a fascinating point, Ensign.”

“Will you please help me here?” Bones huffs at him. “I’m being ganged up on by Team Green,” probably having every idea of how very much Jim will not be appreciating that phrasing.

He tells himself it is his duty, as the Captain, to mitigate arguments between his officers. He tells himself that they are nearing the normal benchmark in which their verbal match will devolve into petty remarks that their barely three-months-enlisted Ensign doesn’t need to bare witness to. He tells himself he is not simply taking orders from the churning in his stomach.

He doesn’t have a plan, doesn’t even have a guise of one, when he opens his mouth.

“Do Vulcans have anything like Earth’s henna?” And Bones does a truly fantastic job of pretending that his salad merely goes down the wrong pipe. Spock, probably suffering from conversational whiplash, doesn’t seem to find an immediate response. “Henna is — ”

“I am aware of the practice, Captain. However, while some plant life on Vulcan do produce dyes used in clothing and potteries there has been no cultural significance attached to using it on one’s skin since the days of pre-reform, when it was simply used as the Vulcan equivalent of what Earth would refer to as ‘War Paint.’”

“What about _less_ temporary forms of tattooing?” Jim asks, expertly ignoring the frown on Bones’ face as it fights to gain more realty in his sight line than the simple corner of his eye.

Spock opens his mouth once, then twice, before once again proving that what a Vulcan doesn’t say is almost always more important than what they do.

“While some stigmas remain attached to them on Earth, I would say they would be considered common there, if not a social normality. The same cannot be said for tattoos on my home world.”

Jim is still finding the inspiration inside of himself to ask the obvious question, _Yes, but what about you?,_ when Chekov and Sulu find their way to the empty chairs at the end of their table.

“Someone will be getting a tattoo?” The younger asks, taking his seat.

“Yeah, Jim is!” Bones declares before anyone else gets a chance. “A little heart with my name in it, right on his ass. The least he can do for me after all he’s done _to_ me.”

Jim only glowers back as Chekov nods, unsure of the actual punchline and, rightly, unwilling to ask should it land him in the middle of one of their squabbles.

“I have been zinking about getting one for myself lately. Something like Uhura’s flover except I will get something from Russia instead. Maybe a sunflover!”

Chekov has always had a particular penchant for eliciting a response and this declaration from him is no exception.

Bones nearly keeps his face neutral as he asks, sarcastically, “Something from Russia? Why, Chekov? Are you from there?” as Sulu mumbles, clearly not sure it’s worth the argument, _‘Sunflowers aren’t native to Russia,’_ as McGoff coos, _‘I love sunflowers!’_

Jim’s confusion seems to break through the noise, his, “Uhura has a tattoo?” ringing louder than the rest of the chaos.

Across the table from him Spock has suddenly found something over Kirk’s shoulder exceptionally interesting. Jim tilts his head into Spock’s line of sight, forcing eye contact as the Vulcan’s face shifts into the kind of neutral that decidedly isn’t, a twitch from the corner of his mouth saying more than some novels.

Chekov is the one who answers him instead, “Yas Keptain! She told me it is a flover from Africa, where she grew up.”

“Did you know Uhura got a tattoo?” And this time there’s no way to pretend the question Jim’s asking doesn’t belong to Spock.

“I did,” Spock answers and Jim deserves a medal for not screeching in frustration. “If you will excuse me, I must return to the labs.”

“Do you want me to check the samples? I don’t mind going,” McGoff cuts in again, Kirk currently too confused to roll the jealousy back out. “When you said the bacteria should be left to culture for the night I thought we were done for the day.”

“You believe your work to be above scrutiny, Ensign?” And even Jim has to admit he’s impressed with her lack of reaction to the tone, sharing a look with the rest of them, clearly in search for anyone who knows what she may have said wrong. She shakes her head, finally, when it appears that Spock is actually waiting for an answer. “Good, I shall inspect the status of the experient and compile a summary of areas I believe are in need of improvement for tomorrow’s review,” removing himself from the table before he’s able to see her nod.

Jim tries to shoot her a sympathetic look, unfortunately knowing too well what it can feel like on the wrong end of an irritated Vulcan. Though she still, at least mostly, appears unphased.

“Will you clear this stuff for me?” Abandoning his tray to the soundtrack of McCoy’s oversung inconvenience. “Spock,” he calls out after the cafe doors nearly close on him, an awkward number of steps behind his First Officer. “Spock!”

The pursued must weigh his desire to escape against Jim’s willingness to run after him and finds his own reluctance lacking in the face of Kirk’s stubbornness. He slows to a halt outside of the turbo lift doors, wearing a bluntly unsure expression as he turns around.

“I apologize, Captain, I did not know I was further needed.”

Jim squints at him, frowning. “I suppose you’re not, no more than usual. You left in such a hurry I just wanted,” he pauses, collecting his thoughts.

A sincere, _‘I just wanted to make sure you were okay,’_ will only result in an already annoyed Spock explaining that it is illogical to inquire over the feelings of one who has full control over their emotions, all the more annoyed for it. Kirk has no idea what an even more honest, _‘I just wanted to be alone with you for a moment,’_ would result in.

“I just wanted to check in, confirm that everything’s really alright up on deck 2. I know I’m no scientist,” Kirk says, plucking the front of his own gold tunic, “but I’m not completely worthless in a lab if you needed a hand.”

Spock softens at that as he, Jim hopes, understands what Kirk is actually saying under the charade of work-talk while appreciating the fact that he has left it unsaid.

“The labs are functioning within acceptable error margins. Though some recent experiments have not concluded with optimal results, that has been the work of science itself, not a failure of staff,” he looks past Kirk, back towards the mess hall. “My concern was not inspired by Ensign McGoff’s capabilities but with her level of arrogance.”

Kirk can’t help but chuckle at Spock’s expense, even if he’s secretly pleased. “I don’t think she was being _arrogant,_ Spock. But she’s an Orion — I think boldness comes with the genes.”

“Perhaps,” guilt a particularly adorable shade on him, not that Jim has any intention of mentioning it.

“I personally put in the request for her transfer to the Enterprise,” Kirk stating what Spock already knows. “With transcripts like those I’ll concede to her right to be a little confident, we can’t all master the humility of Vulcans afterall,” he notices that his hand has risen to the curve of Spock’s shoulder without his input and slides it off, realizing it may ring closer to reluctance than the casually he was aiming for. “You don’t need to take her on as your protege but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t chase her away, either,” smile only fading when Spock’s face doesn’t warm per usual at his joking. “You’re sure there’s no other issues to discuss?”

“Only that I am afraid I will have to postpone tonight’s chess game,” and even though Spock doesn’t sound upset, Jim still wonders if he’s misspoken somehow, the way Spock refuses to look anywhere but the activated lift call button toiling something inside of Kirk.

“Of course,” trying not to sound too disappointed. “I think I can allow you to lose another day.”

But Spock doesn’t react much to that either.

“We can attempt to reschedule for tomorrow, if you are available,” getting into the lift before Jim could even hope to get out an answer.

  

* * *

  

He doesn’t really mean to make the call.

Today’s Bridge shift had started off as another mundane one. After the required updates and system checks there had been little for Jim to do other than his not so new normal: Twisting himself up to spy on his Science Officer. That is, until the boredom of the crew had turned to desperation around ship’s time noon and even Spock had allowed himself to get pulled into a round of Stun, Kill, Marry, amended by Jim in a rare moment of maturity.

Chekov had been his prompter, only slightly less delighted than Kirk at the Vulcan’s willingness to play, and had offered him three choices of infamous fallen dictators. Spock’s, _‘If I were to encounter the three of them, with certainty of their identities, then I would stun them all and contact the proper authorities to bring them in for questioning,’_ which had followed the also vetoed, _‘It should be impossible for me to execute any of the available actions as two of your provided subject options are already deceased and the third is in a high security prison in which I would never be allowed a phaser,’_ had left Jim nearly rolling on the floor.

Things had felt like a particularly nice brand of typical by the time the beta crew had arrived to relieve them. That is until Spock had, once again, tried to flee the room without him. So Jim, pride be damned, had chased after him for a second time in as many days, only to be told that the fully functioning laboratories needed Spock’s immediate assistance and their game would have to be shelved again.

Kirk had stayed up mentally replaying the conversations between them that had occurred over the past couple of shared encounters and could find no reason for Spock’s odd behavior. Most people, the normal ones, would have found this reassuring. Afterall, if you can find no evidence that you’ve done something wrong then the rational course of action is to assume that there isn’t a misdeed to find. Jim, however, has always been of the mind that no news is somehow always worse than bad news. You can’t fix something until you know what’s broken and the two of them have felt more like a rattling car with an overheating engine lately than the smooth two-person cruiser he’s come to know them as.

He hadn’t even tried to rest until after 02:00 had come and gone, a third round with the ship’s computer system about Vulcan script keeping him busy even if it offered no answers on the second front of his Spock-issued turmoil.

So he doesn’t, exactly, mean to make the call. But he’s anxious and sleep deprived on his off-shift day and if his pacing keeps bringing him over to his computer and the comm page of the only person he can think of that could possibly help then maybe his finger could have, accidentally, slipped.

“My old friend,” and Jim feels himself smiling at the enjoyable, if not quite earned, sentiment, “a second call in less than a week’s time. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Why, Ambassador Spock, are you implying that I can’t be calling just to say that I miss you?”

The right corner of his mouth tugs upwards in a much more blazen smirk than his own Spock allows, as restrained as it still is. “You _could_ be, James. You are not, however.”

“Well,” chuckling, not caring to defend himself, “now I feel rightly terrible. I’ve been caught red handed.”

“It is always a gift to speak to you, regardless of your motivations.” His face shifting to something less delighted as he continues, “You appear tired. Has something occurred? You were on a transport mission to Aregan VII the last time we spoke, were you not?” As he, obviously, begins internally sorting through his memory files trying to piece together exactly how Jim could mess up a mission that had been an inconsequential fly through in his own timeline.

“We are, we should arrive in three days if we avoid incident,” he raises an eyebrow, peering down at the screen, “and we ought to, shouldn’t we?”

That small smile is back when Spock responds, “I have said nothing of the sort.”

“Oh, and I’m sure you never would.”

“I have not said that either, James,” before easily finding his way back to the train of thought Jim was casually trying to steer him away from. “What is troubling you?”

“It’s not actually that important.”

“It seems important enough to avoid,” and Jim knows that pointed look too well, “which means it is important enough to fester.”

“You probably aren’t going to answer me.”

“I definitely will not if you do not ask.”

“God, you get worse with old age,” shaking his head as he bites his lip, trying to contain the grin to a smile. “I can barely deal with him as it is. How did I — your Jim — ever manage to win an argument against you a decade from now?”

He would swear that Spock looks downright insulted. “I have not claimed that any such event ever occurred,” and, at that, Kirk finally gives in and lets himself laugh. “Enough of this, tell me, what has you this way?”

A deep breath is followed by a long sigh, “Do you have a tattoo?”

There’s a moment, an unbelievably brief one, where a novelization of emotion passes over that face before sliding resolutely back to neutral, “I do not.”

Jim squints his eyes, looking for the crack in the facade, “But did you ever have one?”

“I did not,” and Jim recognizes the responding expression for what it is: The unconvincing poker face he has witnessed over a chessboard, many times, on a much younger face.

He looks at his dealt hand, assessing the already played cards, trying to calculate which of his possible plays holds the best odds.

“But you almost got one at some point, didn’t you?”

Spock’s pleased expression is back, always happier to lose the mental game of tug o’ war than his younger self usually is. Kirk wonders sometimes if there’s any real intention behind the fight or if this Spock is merely looking for a way to claim innocence when Jim’s impossible knowledge of a situation eventually does get them into a jam.

“There was a time that I was going to,” Jim waits, “Uhura always had a gift for getting her way.”

“So what stopped you?”

“We were about to begin the process when I got a call from my Captain,” Jim knows what he means by the use of ‘my’, having to remind himself each time it’s for clarity alone. Though, he's never actually managed to completely subdue the racing of his heart upon hearing a version of himself be referred to in possessive phrasing by a version of his First Officer. “At the time, his parents were visiting a few of his father’s family members on Marden. An unexpected electrical surge in their power structure caused the security systems to send out an alarm that the life support systems were failing despite the fact that they continued to operate without disruption. His mother worried that Starfleet would send out a distress call before getting notice from the planet that it was merely a computer malfunction and she had not wanted Jim to think that they were in danger.”

Kirk thinks for a moment, aligning the timelines in his head. “Marden happened while we, while you, were on Kona XIX, right?” Spock gives a nod, a miniscule one. “ _My_ mother, of course, wasn’t visiting anyone on Marden at that time,” looking down at his hands, “and we were so far out that we wouldn’t have been any help if the alarm had been legitimate so we didn’t receive any communication from the Fleet. We didn’t even hear about the false alarm until the next day.”

“This sounds likely.”

“Which means that my-you didn’t have a frantic Captain, panicking about his folks’ impending demise, to bust down the door and interrupt his session,” another, even fainter, nod. “Which means my-you got that tattoo.”

“This also sounds likely.”

There’s a pause as they look at each other, both seeming to dare the other to go there. Jim’s used to this challenge by now, cycling through this same process every time this Spock lets a flinch slip on hearing the name of their next destination.

He pulls the trigger they’re both waiting for. “What were you going to get? Before the appointment was disrupted?”

“The Konatians have particular rituals where their tattooing is concerned, especially when done traditionally by a high priest as Nyota and I had planned to,” he pauses, considering Jim for a moment. “Just because our circumstances are similar does not mean we would have the same results.”

“I have not claimed such a thing,” Kirk responds, weidling this Spock’s own go-to defense against him.

“It is not customary for the artist to share your design with you before inking,” clearly switching tactics, “to ask to see the sketch prior is considered highly rude by their people.”

“You’re dedicating an awful lot of energy to avoid saying that you simply don’t know, which one could claim to be a little suspicious, considering how desperately you’re trying to convince me that you don’t.”

He smiles, proudly, even as he insists, “I did not see the drawing, James.”

“You’re insufferable, the both of you. That isn’t an answer.”

“You should ask my younger self about the process, perhaps it is not the same in this timeline and I would not want to offer you inaccurate information.”

“You don’t even believe that,” but Spock oddly stands his ground, the lines of his face holding their amused, but decided, expression. “Unfortunately I’m going to have to let you win this round, I have a lunch date with Bones and I’m sure you remember his love of punctuality.”

“A hungry Leonard McCoy is not one you should anger lightly,” the ta’al is offered with a sincere smile. “Until next time.”

Jim’s hand is halfway up, his mouth open around a goodbye when suddenly he realizes he has one more play at this.

“Just tell me straight, from one friend to the other, _do_ you know what it says?”

The smile grows, weaving its way behind his eyes, with unapologetic self-satisfaction. “Ask him,” the screen growing dark before Jim can protest.

 

* * *

 

 _Wrung out,_ is barely strong enough of a word to encompass how he’s feeling and yet, as he makes his way back from the mess hall, he knows that boxing himself up in his own room will do him no good.

He thinks about following Leonard to the medbay. Chapel has recently joined him in the belief that flirting in front of Bones as he becomes increasingly irritated, his metaphors reaching a tier of southern disposition that may be literally illegal north of Virginia, is a worthwhile pastime. However, what he needs most is sleep, not entertainment, and he’ll only be getting any of that if he can achieve the status of, ‘Dead on his Feet.’

His watch tells him it’s past halfway through beta already. It’s a 24 hour ship and that can make for odd runs in the common areas, but 21:00 is normally on the slower end of the cycle, being both late enough that the alphas will be headed to quarters at the end of their days and the gammas, unless suffering from the same insomnia as their Captain, should still be dreaming.

That leaves the gym, in theory, on the emptier side and that, he decides, is as good as anywhere on the ship to tire oneself out. His theory is confirmed once he reaches deck 7, finding the gym all but deserted as he walks down the left hall where the nicer equipped private suites are. He passes several rooms that he realizes are likely unoccupied, making his way to their, _his,_ normal one by sheer force of habit. Without much thought, he punches in his Captain’s code to override the reservation policy, saving himself the three minutes the computer insists it takes to process the request.

Only the room isn’t empty.

The occupant’s back is to him, silent other than the sound of the deep measured breathing, the room blaring his normal too-warm degree that he sets for his tai chi sessions. Kirk stands there, staring, as Spock carefully moves from pose to pose.

It isn’t as if he’s never seen this before. The Vulcan had spent a few evenings trying to instruct him on it, and although Jim hadn’t been hopeless at it he did, however, find it too distracting physically to benefit from it meditatively. The pair had collectively decided to set it in the Spock-only category and returned as a doublet to yoga. So while this isn’t, exactly, a new sight to him, he’s also never been able to enjoy this as a non-participating audience member. And it’s different, so very different, when there’s no other goal but to observe the display in full scope instead of framed in an educational format where the objective is mimicking, not mere appreciation.

Spock slowly moves into a pose Kirk knows as Snake Creeping Left, his legs stretching out and his back elongating — the black t-shirt he’s adorning riding up his spine as it’s pulled away from where it tries to cling to the sweat soaked skin. There’s a sheen of it on his neck and arms and, now Jim sees, the expanse of his slim lower back, as the tattoo glistens just slightly under the harsh gym lighting.

This is the closest, by far, he’s ever been in the three times he’s seen it. Close enough to confirm the coloring, redder than he originally thought, like a brown copper with highlights of gold and honey. The longer he stares, the more Kirk feels the entire weight of the temperature controls as several different panics kick on at once.

He shouldn’t be here. Barging in was an honest mistake but staying — gawking like this. Made all the worse by his racing pulse and the saliva in his mouth he can’t seem to swallow around the lump that’s formed in his throat. He’s the commanding officer of nearly 500 souls. He shouldn’t be here, worried about the real possibility of drooling, as a craving he hasn’t felt this uncontrollably since his teenage years threatens against the far too thin material of his uniform pants. He’s 30 years old, for christs sake, he shouldn't be this affected by a completely clothed Vulcan who is blissfully unaware of his company.

_James T. Kirk, pull yourself together before you embarrass yourself more than you already have._

Spock’s at least three poses past the last time Jim had a functioning brain cell, leg curling up in an elegant heel kick when Kirk regains motion control and spins too quickly, hitting the wall where he’s almost sure there used to be a door.

He rights himself, shuffling to his left, hoping against all sense of reality that whatever trance Spock has put himself in is deep enough to —

“Jim?” And it’d be better if it was an accusation instead of sincere concern. “Did we schedule a sparring match?” Both knowing, of course, that they hadn’t.

“No, sorry Spock. I actually just came down to use the sonic,” never having appreciated his own ability to bullshit out of a corner quite like he does right now.

“These are not the bathing rooms.”

“No, they’re very much not, Spock, I’ll just be,” with a gesture towards the door.

“Are you alright, Captain? Do you need assistance?”

And Kirk isn’t in any frame of mind to ask his normal quip about how, exactly, Spock would be planning on assisting him in the shower.

“Fine, I’m fine. Just tired.”

“I see,” and he definitely, thankfully, does not. “I will put in the engineering ticket as soon as I am finished here.”

“Ticket, Spock?” Voice reaching a pitch on the other side of the galaxy as casual.

Unease shifts to confusion and back to proper concern so rapidly Jim’s brain is barely able to track the transition of it all on Spock’s face.

“For the sonic in our shared bathroom. I assume it must not be operating properly if you have chosen to come all the way to the 7th deck just to bathe.”

“Right, yes,” sounding like he may have turned into a total blundering idiot still fairing better than the truth of him _definitely_ having become one. “Thank you, Spock.”

Jim scurries away, apparently to use the sonics, all the while trying to format a scheme of how, exactly, he plans on breaking his own shower.

 

* * *

  

He had been laying awake, again, as the clock had ticked past midnight, the scene from the previous night playing like a car crash on loop in his head. Not that the burning embarrassment had stopped his mind from wandering to the expanse of green skin Spock’s undershirt offered, so rarely seen. The way his muscles had been so prominent in motion, the noise of his breathing so rooted in rhythm, the way the black material had clung to the gentle curvature of his back —

“I almost got a tattoo once,” he blurts out, suddenly.

Jim had debated being the one to bring up the now twice rescheduled chess game, wondering if the recent issues had stemmed from a lack of initiation on his part, his enthusiasm for them somehow in question. The idea that his absolute ardor for their time together could be doubted seemed beyond ridiculous to him. However, the idea that these nights, alone but for their thoughts, could be threatened over something as feeble as ego was worse. Kirk had every intention of resorting to begging, if need be, when Spock had approached him halfway through the shift to inquire about Jim’s evening plans.

He had blinked back, more than a little surprise probably showing on his face. His First Officer made a habit of not talking free time while on duty, a trait he did seldom bend for Jim’s sake. Kirk, who had already drafted through point three of his essay on why their games should be reinstated, had snapped out of it with a far too spirited agreeal. His cheeks were sore by the end of alpha from the grin he couldn’t seem to keep off of his face each time he had turned back to the science station despite the continued protesting from his back. He was bound to get a kink in it at this rate.

Here, in the Jim’s own quarters, Spock’s fingers hover for a second before grasping the black knight and moving Jim into his first check of the match. He seems as lost on how to respond as Jim is to why he’s chosen now to announce this information.

“Did I ever tell you?” Kirk asks, knowing, of course, that he definitely has not.

“You have not. But it is not such a rarity on Earth. With your particular class of personality traits it is probably considered more unusual that you do not have one than if you had.”

“I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment or an insult.”

“It is merely a fact,” Spock’s voice lacking any inflection.

_Definitely an insult then._

“You know, everyone else,” meaning a grand total of Bones, his brother, and one TrikLolian women he drunk-sobbed to in a bar nearly a decade ago, “who I’ve told about this just chose the politer route of asking what I had planned on getting without the analytic commentary.”

Even with his dipped head Kirk can see the twitch of his mouth, the right corner of it always the weakest point of defense against smiling.

“Perhaps they did not know you as well as I do,” Jim raises his eyebrow, feeling his own mouth start to curl up as he wins the war of Spock’s attention. “If you desire to tell me then my level of interest, or lack thereof, is not relevant.”

“Why, Mr. Spock! I’m beginning to feel unwanted. You could just tell me if you think I’m so disgracious.”

“I think that you are many things, Jim,” and he swears that despite the horizontal line of his mouth, Jim’s never seen a shit eating grin quite as pleasing as the one that Spock’s currently boasting.

“Fine then. Maybe I just won’t tell you after all,” and that’s definitely the first half of an eyeroll.

“It would be pleasing to know, if you would like to share.”

His sleep deprived brain hadn’t made it this far in the plan. He doesn’t want to lie. They’ve both grown up in families who could have only benefited from an increase in honesty. Jim has done his best, whenever possible, to be truthful with Spock, if not always candid. But the truth here isn’t an easy one. Jim’s just gotten him back from some type of unexplained sabbatical and Kirk isn’t looking to chase him off with a fit of melancholy.

He’s gripping the back of his own neck, rubbing it far too roughly, when Spock’s smug expression collapses at the tell, barely following the motion of Jim moving his rook into a somehow even worse position than he was already in.

There’s a pause, always intentional when coming from a Vulcan, before Spock ignores the glaringly obvious checkmate opening and dances Kirk back into, “Check.”

“After Taurus IV,” he gets out before the Vulcan’s eyebrows come together in anger at the planet’s name. He soothes them out with an obvious struggle, the reaction remarkably calm in comparison to the first, and last, time Jim had mentioned his involvement there. “Well, I considered getting something to — I don’t know. ‘Memorialize,’ I suppose is the word I’m looking for. It just sounds so somber and that isn’t really what I’ve imagined. Though I’m not sure how one would commemorate it, respectfully, in another tone.”

“Did you have a design for it in mind?”

Jim feels his own head shake even as he says, “Sort of,” Spock just waits as Kirk finds his place in the chaos of his own head. “I thought of getting everyone’s initials, my group’s that is. But that seemed dismissive of everyone else that died, that had to live through it. Just because I didn’t watch it happen to them —” he cuts himself off. “Then I just thought about getting the dates of the famine but that felt wrong too. So removed, somehow. As if the tragedy began and ended in those moments. As if there weren’t a million wrong decisions that led up to it, a million more to grind through after the rescue. I don’t want to give it the satisfaction of sounding minimized,” Spock doesn’t comment, but his eyes are full with understanding. “The only other thing I could come up with was a picture of these berries that Jason had found one day, near the end,” he stops to feel the bittersweet smile spread across his own face. “God, we were just so happy to see food. We must have eaten half an acre of them,” sighing. “They were, of course, poisonous and the resulting dehydration nearly killed us all. But I can still hear Jason’s pained, _‘Worth it,’_ ” a chuckle still leaves him even as his face crumbles. “He didn’t make it. It — It wasn’t the berries. But it didn’t feel right, you know? To make a joke out of it. Even if it’s not meant that way.”

“I understand, Jim,” and he does. The devastation on his face is proof enough of that.

“In the end I just decided that getting anything — that maybe it wasn’t the type of closure I wanted. Focusing on the trauma, the loss, turning it into a literal scar. I figured, if I couldn’t find a way to quantify what I wanted it to say then maybe it wasn’t the right way to say it.”

“There is something relevant that I would like to share with you, if you would indulge me?”

“Of course I don’t mind,” happy to take the focus off of himself in any small way.

Spock doesn’t immediately move as he takes Jim in, his expression offering an idea of just how much the current state of Kirk’s voice has alarmed him. It’s soft, and too high, causing it to break a bit. He’s getting ready to assure his Vulcan that even though he may not be _ideal_ he is also fine enough to be left alone for a moment when Spock, finally, does get up. Jim takes the opportunity of his absence to shift his queen to the first legal spot he finds, so unlikely to win now and even less likely to care, before Spock returns with a paper pad and a pen from his desk. His hand moves over it quickly before passing it to Jim over the board.

The page is filled with elegant Vulcan script, three words that Kirk doesn’t recognize from his practices. He runs his fingertip along the swirls, tracing them slowly, his first response being to cling to the addition of something so pretty in such an otherwise ugly topic. He’s already appreciating the sentiment without even a trace understanding.

“What does it say?” He finally asks.

Spock’s cheek scrunches up so slightly that you’d almost be more likely to miss it than not.

“It is a phrase in Vulcan that I think you will find appropriate here. Our languages do not always overlap, making working translations difficult, if not impossible,” Jim holds onto his patience. “The closest conversion would be along the line of: ‘Beauty lives within a surviving heart.’”

_You can’t just say things like that to me. When you don’t know — when you can’t possibly fathom. It isn’t fair for me to know these things you’re capable of, to bare witness to it from this perch that I’ve landed myself on. I could fly closer but for the winds. I could ask you to stop but for the pain of loss. So don’t Spock, don’t you ever stop saying things like that to me._

“I am sorry, Jim. I have overstepped,” Spock adds, crossing over the line of worry.

And Kirk’s just barely able to sweep the paper out of Spock’s long reach in time.

“You have absolutely not,” staring down at it once more, holding it protectively in the gap between him and the table. “I don’t know if I’ll get it tattooed, but I’d like to keep it all the same.”

Spock’s face is still guarded but beginning to ease as he nods once again. “It could be redone on parchment with proper inking, there are several surviving master calligraphers residing on New Vulcan.”

But Jim is already shaking his head before the offer is completed. “As beautiful as I’m sure that would be, I think I’d just like to keep yours,” he forces his eyes off of it, back to his friend’s open face. “If you don’t mind?”

Spock reaches over the table once more and Jim releases the pad reluctantly, watching as he tears out the page before folding it into a complex pattern with the ease of muscle memory.

His hand presses it back into Jim’s with a late, “I will be pleased knowing that it brings you comfort,” the words almost overshadowed by the touching of their palms. Kirk so instantly overwhelmed by the intentional skin to skin contact the Vulcan rarely allows.

Jim feels slightly foolish, the conversation vastly having gotten away from his intended path and he swallows around the small amount of remaining embarrassment. He tries to angle away from the feeling of it, knowing he has no real cause to be ashamed in this company, as he rubs his still tingling palm roughly against the thigh of his trousers.

“Well, Spock, you’ve been more than kind. I think it’s beyond time that you put me out of my misery.”

Spock looks to the board and back at Jim, that small half smile returning as he begins to move his pieces back to starting position before Jim can get out an objection.

“We shall call it a draw,” he says, Jim’s opinion on the matter being ignored as his own pieces are adjusted after failing to do so himself.

“A draw? Hardly! I think you had a record number of options for a checkmate.”

“It was not your finest game,” Spock doesn’t disagree.

They play again, mostly in silence, until Jim loses with a little more flair than their previous match, the unspoken agreement between them to call it a night following shortly after his king has fallen.

Jim holds up the folded piece of paper, determined to say something to encapture his gratitude without the words or energy to do so.

“‘Beauty lives…’” he cites in the most flirtatious tone he can muster, “you finally admitting that you think I’m beautiful, Mr. Spock?”

The eye roll from earlier is finally given its full rotation, his eyes meeting Jim’s in an expression that finds the exact intersection of annoyance and amusement.

“I think you are many things, Jim,” he repeats, even more smug than the last time.

Spock leaves him through the doorway of their shared bathroom, giving Kirk no other options but to stand there staring, clutching on to the slim scrap of pride he has left as he fights not to call to him.

It isn’t until later, while he sits at the edge of his bed, delicately unfolding the paper that he realizes — this handwriting. He’d bet his whole ship that the writing on Spock’s back hadn’t been penned by the same hand.

To quote the source, _Fascinating._

 

* * *

  

He realizes that the laundry department has been back up and running without incident for a couple of days now. Spock’s wardrobe, along with the rest of the ship’s, has seemed to fully recover from the sorting incident. Which means that Kirk has absolutely no reasonable explanation for why he keeps looking over his shoulder to the science station other than it being a habit to do so.

There had been a promise, made to himself with full sincerity, that he was going to be better about this. Or, at the very least, more subtle. With guilt, self-shaming, and simply avowing to stop all crossed off as possible deterrents, Jim has to admit that he’s running out of hope that there even is one. Still, something really ought to be done. He lost count of how many times he’d caught himself peeking behind him someplace in the high teens before reaching the halfway point of the shift.

The thing is, he doesn’t actually expect to see it again. He’s not sure that he’s even hoping to. Perhaps there’s simply some small part of him which has gotten used to Spock being there, a guiding light in trying times. He’s the captain, Kirk knows that when push comes to shove the decisions have always been his to make — and he does make them. But a tradition has formed, of sorts, without his own input, of looking over to Spock, for something, in those moments. Not for permission or approval, not even for advice. Jim has always looked back at Spock, a request for assurance in a plan his First Officer hasn’t even heard yet, and Spock has always looked back, confidently. And if someone like Spock, someone as brilliant and resourceful as his Vulcan, can trust him so thoroughly — well, then Jim knows that he can trust himself too.

Only Spock won’t be his source of encouragement on this.

It’s a simple question. _‘So, Spock, I’ve tried to provide you with an opening but you don’t seem interested in biting. Care to tell your dear friend about the tattoo that your lower back is sporting?’_ Though maybe that’s the problem with it.

Spock must know by now that Jim has seen it. Spock also definitely knows of his inability to read Vulcan. So the fact that Kirk continues to not bring it up, at this point, will probably be interpreted as a bigger deal than simply asking and finally getting his answer would be. However, there’s the single conundrum that he gets stuck on everytime Jim runs himself through the simple process of asking for a translation: If they’re such good friends, if they’re even half as close as they feel on their worst day, then why is there even a secret to know? Does he truly think that Jim, Jim whose life he cried for, could possibly ever judge Spock for something so inconsequential as the meaning behind a tattoo?

He reminds himself of his friends back at the academy and the ink they bore. The drunken adventures, the frivolous regrets, and knows that none of them would have cared for him less if they had not have told him their origin stories. He knows that he needs to let this go.

“Captain, are you feeling alright?”

Spock, once again living up to his species’ feline predecessors, has silently found his way next to the Captain’s chair, making Jim nearly squeak in surprise as he tries not to jump.

“Yes?” He coughs, more than says. “Yes, I am. Why, Mr. Spock, is there a problem?”

Only the start of that answer is cut off by the sounds of his work communicator. He looks down at it, expecting it to be yet another mailing from headquarters following up on the one he’d received earlier.

Kirk had been sent word that their taxi servicing would now be held to a one-way engagement, the Enterprise being reassigned to a time-sensitive mission on a planet a couple of light years beyond where they had originally been planning to park for the duration of the conference. The return trip of their passengers was reallocated to the unfortunate crew of the Venture, all of which are probably still groaning at the news. The Ambassadors, along with Kirk and a small crew, will be shuttled down to the planet upon arrival, now just staying long enough to be polite and for Scotty to get the engines back into shape for actually moving instead of crawling. Jim hadn’t exactly been quiet about how excited he was to take over a negotiation-assistance mission on the small, non-Federation, planet of Ghedeen.

_If the brass has the nerve to retract the reassignment and we’re back to staying on for the duration of this heinous assignment —_

But it isn’t from the admiralty at all. He stares at the screen and the sight of the unplayed holo, checking the sender's name twice despite knowing the clearly shown face staring back at him. His thumb lingers over the play button for a second before snapping away, his communicator thudding closed as he quickly shoves it back into his pocket.

“ —seem distracted. Should I call Doctor McCoy?”

That threat does the trick of carrying Kirk back to the land of the living, to the clicks and beeps and low lighting of the Bridge he’s on and away from the reeling of his own mind.

“No, thank you. I had a bit of a rough night, I think I’m just a little tired,” he glances around the room, confronted by a sea of slightly concerned faces. “If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Spock, I think I’m a bit unneeded here. Would you mind taking the con?”

“Of course, Captain,” and Jim swears you’d have to be deaf not to hear the anxiety flowing through his voice.

Kirk rises from his chair, forcing a smile as Spock follows him as far as the turbo lift doors, looking clearly like he wants to say something. Jim reaches out, hand coming down on Spock’s shoulder too close to the neck of shirt, squeezing once in what Jim hopes is enough reassurance to ease some of the lines forming on his First Officer’s face.

“I’ll be in my quarters. Comm me immediately should anything come up,” holding Spock’s eyes until the lift door closes.

He punches in deck 13 instead and tries to breathe to the humming of the ship, attempting to forget, for a moment, that a comm from one Winona Kirk is burning a hole into his pocket.

 

* * *

 

For someone who chases stars for a living, James T. Kirk has a remarkable way of somehow always ending up in the one place he doesn’t want to be the most. It’s remarkable, really. People can spend their whole lives living in the same city as an ex-lover and never bump into them at the corner store. But you give him and his mother an entire galaxy, and the means to jet around it, and they’ll still find a way to cross paths at least once a year.

He looks down at the vid-comm, still glaringly bright on his screen in the low lighting of the observation deck. He plays it again, self-torture a favorite on his personal list of coping mechanisms.

“Hey Jimmy, we just got notice that The Venture had a little _misunderstanding_ with the Romulans and is going to be parked for awhile as it gets repaired,” as she desperately tries to keep her eyes on the camera, “So the Fleet has reassigned your reassigned assignment to us. Small world,” She huffs out a forced laugh. “So I figure — if The Enterprise and The Luminary are going to be on the same rock for a minute we, well, we might as well make plans to see each other,” eyes finally falling to her lap before catching herself, ordering them back. “Let me know?” Her hand raises, finger hovering over the end call button when she suddenly blurts out, as if just realizing, “Love you, Jimmy,” and the screen goes black momentarily before relighting with the opening still of the video.

His debate about whether or not to play it through a fifth time is interrupted by the sound of the door opening followed by measured footsteps.

“You’ve caught me lamenting again,” he says without turning to face the newcomer. “You always manage to.”

“If it consoles you, when you did not show up to my quarters for our scheduled sparring match I first checked the gym incase I had misunderstood your intention for us meet prior.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, tilting his head up to Spock as he finally makes his way around to the front of the couch that Jim’s occupying. He tries to look apologetic, he tries to look fine, “would you be able to forgive me if I told you that I have no excuse other than that I simply forgot?”

“I have already done so. It would, however, concern me,” he takes the cushion to Kirk’s right, close enough that Jim can already feel Spock’s heat where their thighs touch. He knows it is only so they can speak softly, a Vulcan appreciating well the appeal of keeping oneself private even if they are sitting in a deserted room. “What’s troubling you?”

He hands Spock the padd, Jim cringing his way through as he listens to it again, the audio on its own somehow even more painful than when conjoined with the distractingly faked smile. Spock stares at the screen a minute, and then at Kirk, a tired agitation rolling off of the Vulcan as he places the padd onto the table as far away from Jim as he can while maintaining subtlety.

“Your mother and my father seem to possess a commonality.”

“No sense of tact?”

That half smile is back as Spock stares out the window ahead of them, “Two, then. They are not as good at hiding their emotions as they have lead themselves to believe.”

Jim chuckles at the joke, feeling the sincerity of it rumble in his chest, the vibration helping to loosen the tangle of knot inside of his ribs.

“Don’t think I won’t tell Sarek you accused him of such a scandalous thing as having a feeling,” Spock only raises an eyebrow, as if daring him to, when he eventually turns to face him. “I’m sorry, Spock, you’re the last person on this ship I should be grumbling about seeing my mother to.”

Spock nods, never one to pretend.

“I understand the logic behind that concern. However, I am able to acknowledge my mother’s regretful passing as one truth while accepting, as another, that the relationship between you and your own is a complicated one.”

“‘Complicated’,” Jim chuckles again. “You’re vastly too kind.”

“Would it help you to know that the bond I had with my own mother was not a straightforward one? There were many issues between us that were left unresolved.”

Jim’s arm finds a way to bend in the small space between them, sliding over Spock’s to rest his hand on the blue sleeved forearm, careful that his fingers stay above his cuff rankings. He fights against the wave of warmth which floods him when Spock doesn’t so much as flinch at the sudden touch, not confident that the low lighting is dim enough to hide a blush. Brown eyes watch the way the muscles of Jim’s hand shift as they grip his wrist tighter, thumb sweeping over the knob of bone there. Spock’s arm migrates closer to Jim’s thigh in such a minutely small measure that he almost doesn’t notice.

“That may actually make it worse,” and Spock’s face begins the slow crawl to worry as his eyes get as far as Jim’s chest. “I know you’re not lecturing me to make amends with her. But I think of how silly it must seem, to keep building this metaphorical wall between us when all it does is perpetuate the problem that makes the wall feel necessary to begin with.”

“Many walls are built on a single cornerstone, identifying the source is often the best way to crumble the structure entirely,” gaze moving higher, at least reaching Kirk’s face. “If you desire to eliminate it.”

“Oh, the stone’s been identified,” Spock’s turn to eyebrow at him. “My mother has two tattoos.”

“I assume this is relevant information?”

And Jim can’t help but smile.

“When my brother Sam was born she got the stardate of his birth tattooed on her wrist. Little slice of watermelon right next to it. Apparently she couldn’t stop craving it the entire time she was pregnant with him,” He sighs, “Or so my aunt told me.”

“The other one?” His tone indicating that he already knows this isn’t going to be the obvious answer.

Jim’s gaze slips back to the window, out to all that blackness.

“A combination, I guess,” trying, and failing, to keep the tired out of his voice. “My father’s birthday followed by mine, only they both belong to him. 2203.71, 2233.04 right her over her heart.”

“It does not mean that she loves you less.”

“No, it doesn’t, but it’s always meant that she didn’t know _how_ to love me,” the stars blur by as they warp past them, the distance between them and their destination melting away. “My birth and the worst moment of her life coincided and she’s never been able to separate the two. I know I must sound heartless, I can’t honestly claim that I’d have been any more fair about it, if I were in her shoes. But I didn’t deserve to inherit that. I’m more than my father’s death.”

“Have you ever said this to her?”

A scoff pulls out of Jim that he hadn’t ask for, startling enough to bring him back to Spock. “Jesus, no. That’s not the kind of harsh honesty people tend to hurl at each other.”

“Yet the absence of such honesty serves as nothing but a roadblock, causing smaller strains that, combined, are far more harrowing than the pain only one uncomfortable conversation could produce,” and Jim tries not to tally all the different areas of his life he could apply that advice to.

“You should know by now, Spock, us humans tend to favor the ease of now over the sensical long game.”

“Then, perhaps,” eyes bright and close as Jim turns back towards him, “it is time to be more Vulcan.”

“I’m not sure the ears would suit me,” teasing to muffle the acute realization that he could count Spock’s eyelashes from this distance.

“While my species do boast much more sensitive auditory abilities I do not believe that this inferiority is the center of your problems.”

Kirk snorts at the wisecrack, wondering, once again, how Spock’s ever gotten away with the claim of not having a sense of humor. “And I suppose you have a theory on what is?”

“You dispense a great amount of effort into avoiding asking for help. There is an entire crew aboard this ship who care about your wellbeing,” gaze falling to Jim’s mouth as a smile fights for purchase there before returning to his eyes, “It would serve you well to lean on them every so often.”

“A Vulcan telling me to open up, now I know that I’m hopeless.”

“To use an Earth phrase, _‘Those who can’t do, teach.’_ ”

“You sure about the emotion thing?” Spock not helping himself by looking so affronted, “‘Cause I’m thinking that face is boasting some pretty serious smug.”

His face shifts instantly back to the concern he was wearing earlier.

“Fear of being unguarded is a constant across the galaxy, Jim. I apologize if I have made you feel judged for it. It was not my intention,” Kirk catching the way Spock’s other hand clenches on his far thigh as Jim squeezes the arm he’s still holding.

“No, Spock, no,” shaking his head too violently for the small space between them. “I just, I’m not looking for someone to solve all my problems.”

There’s a pause, a short one, and Kirk watches a decision being made in that millisecond.

“Then what is it that you seek?”

_I don’t think I’m searching anymore. Sometimes, when it’s quiet, and I let myself breathe — I think I’ve found it already. I’m just not sure if it’s looking for me._

“You ever hear the young recruits in the halls, in the mess? Trying their best to speak so quietly about how much they miss home?” Spock nods, slowly, knowing him well enough to know that there’s more, “I’m not above being homesick, I think it’s an unavoidable aspect of humanity, but I just don’t know where I’m aching for.”

“Forgive me,” the absolutely carefulness dripping from his tone making Jim lean in impossibly closer, “but I was unaware that there is no place you claim as such,” and something in that sentence just hits the wrong way.

“Well, I left Iowa never even wanting to look back, so that isn’t fitting. San Francisco was always just a stopping point to something else and I think a home should feel like more than a layover. All that leaves is here,” his left hand runs, almost subconsciously, along the rim of a window. “I know that I belong here with you, _all_ of you,” he’s quick to correct, “but it’s the nature of it to feel temporary sometimes.”

“You wish to leave Starfleet?” And it’s endearing, how distressed he sounds.

“God, no. Can you imagine me shacked up in a box somewhere?” Laughing again as Spock takes a deep breath, looking away on the exhale. “I’d make our CMO look sane after just a week of it,” his thumb runs over the bands on Spock’s wrist with increasing pressure until Jim wins back his Vulcan’s attention. “I’m not looking to anchor.”

“Then I shall you ask you again, since you seem to have distracted yourself,” and it’s Jim’s turn to roll his eyes, “what are you searching for?”

He forces a smile through the sigh. “A way to make the transitory feel permanent. Something to make a life built on unknowns seem familiar.”

“I believe you have fallen victim to the human tradition of _‘waxing poetic’_.”

“One of these days I’m going to hurl myself out of an airlock,” Kirk grunts, “and I swear to every star out there, if either you or Bones dare to look surprised for even a sec —”

“Captain?” Jim does his best to glare. “You deserve nothing less than all you desire.” Their eyes hold for as long as Jim can hold his breath, his lungs starting to ache when Spock finally breaks away. “I have taken up enough of your time, I did not mean to intrude.” Leaving Kirk no time to object as he continues, “Since I know you are well, I will leave you to your… lamenting, but know your company is not unwanted should you require mine,” and Kirk is left to wonder whether Spock notices the half inch of their hands that brush together as he’s forced to detangle their arms in his quest to stand up.

Jim gets out a thank you, or at least thinks he does, several sources of his brain screaming loud enough that he manages not to notice the absence of the second woosh of the door closing, jumping slightly when Spock once again breaks the silence as he remains in the open doorway.

“There is one topic of our discussion I would like to revisit, in the event that you actually require reassurance on the matter,” voice playfully calm.

“Oh? And what would that be, Mr. Spock?”

Dark eyes are looking towards Kirk, lips allowed to noticeably curl, as Spock states with the same level of factuality he speaks of experiments in, “I find your ears to be quite agreeable as they are, Jim.”

The Vulcan leaves, quickly, as Kirk flushes pink.

 

* * *

 

It will never cease to amaze Jim, how long an hour can feel in a shuttle craft. Jim tries to bite his mental tongue as he reminds himself to be grateful that he, for once, hasn’t been jammed in with the diplomats. He takes a moment to appreciate, and commiserate, with the poor ensigns who politely took up with them in the mess hall yesterday only to become their unwilling favorites amongst the crew. Jim had tried, and probably failed, not to squeal with delight when he was personally commed by the ambassador for the sole purpose of requesting the pair as their chaperones for the trip down. If only that had saved him the trip altogether.

“You are fidgeting.”

Though Spock, he thinks, may not be as delighted with his company.

“I’m bored,” Jim complains back.

Though it isn’t the boredom itself that’s currently eating at him — the last week ensuring that he’s become plenty accustomed to the feeling. There’s a ball of nerves throbbing inside of him, growing larger by the minute as they make their descent down to the planet. It emerged last night as a small unpleasantry only to have spent the sleepless hours feeding itself full on the memories of how the last few meetings between him and his mother had gone. _'Not well,'_ being the running theme. He knows he shouldn’t be harping on incidents that have come and gone, processed and accepted. Living in the past means there’s little hope for a change in today and, despite his resistance to be here, he _does_ want things to be different. If only that dread didn’t seem to boil back over every time his mind is left to wander on its own accord.

Spock, of course, somehow manages to understand. “I doubt I will be in need of your assistance until closer to landing. Perhaps reading could occupy your thoughts or you could make use of my work padd if there is any post-mission paperwork you would like to complete in order to pass the time?”

“That may be the most dignified way I’ve ever heard you tell someone that they’re annoying the hell out of you,” he swears that Spock actually sighs in response. “What if I’d rather talk?”

“I have not asked you to be silent.”

And Jim, never knowing when he’s ahead, opens his mouth.

“Have you heard the latest on Chekov’s quest to encapsulate Russia into a tattoo?”

He pauses to look at Jim, eyes full of his particular brand of suspicion, before returning to the view screen ahead.

“I believe the last time I was involved in a discussion of that topic,” and Jim snorts at the complicated version of, _'forced to listen to you humans gossip about it,'_ “Sulu was still attempting to convince him that sunflowers were not an indigenous plant of the country.”

“Oh, you’re several behind then. There was, of course, St. Basil’s cathedral. Followed, I think, by a set of those matryoshkas dolls. Then he took a hard right and started talking about the Baba Yaga which is, quite literally, one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever heard of,” Spock, whether he is aware of the folklore or not, doesn’t ask for clarification. “I think he’s still on the Firebird idea.”

It takes Spock a moment to accept that Jim will be forcing him to take his turn to speak, “If his only requirement for the design is that it hails from his home country then he has numerous other options to consider before choosing one.”

And that makes Jim laugh, “Yeah, I don’t like it for him either, he’s not a phoenix kind of kid. I feel like he should get something along the lines of a baby siberian roe deer, one with tiny little antlers and those cute fluffy butts,” allowing himself to get excited. “Wait! Where was ice cream invented?”

Spock, happy to have something factual to add, “On Earth ice cream was invented in China.”

“Oh,” not hiding his disappointment. “What would you pick for him?”

“I would not.”

“Oh come on,” goading him as he pokes the side of Spock’s ribs. “There must be something that you think would be fitting for our resident infant?”

“A human is only an infant until it reaches one year of age, Ensign Chekov is significantly older than that,” he states, over Jim’s groaning. “He is also not that substantially younger than— ”

“Fine,” cutting him off abruptly. “What would you pick for me, if I was going to get one? A dunce cap?”

“To imply that you lack intelligence would only be an insult to myself, as I have often been bested by you where knowledge is concerned. Though as for alternatives, quantifying your penchant for leaping without regard to your own safety into a simple two-dimensional design may take some work on my part.”

Jim allows him the easy out.

“And I suppose you’d pick something purely logical for yourself, Mr. Spock? Tell me, what does a logical tattoo look like?”

“Name, rank, and emergency contact information could be most beneficial to have inscribed on oneself in the right circumstances.”

Jim feels himself rolling his eyes, “And a less rational one? Anything fatuous strike your fancy?”

He’s always found it funny, how someone who claims to be emotionless can have such a terrible poker face.

“Should I desire an illogical one in the future, I will defer to your expertise.”

“Well I, for one,” turning in his seat to face Spock completely, belt pulling uncomfortably tight, refusing to disengage now that they’ve reached the lower atmospheres, “know just what I’d pick for you.”

“Do you require me to ask for the information you are clearly eager to tell me?”

Jim’s starting to feel a bit like Bones with all of this eye rolling.

“A tree,” a side eye responds. “You remind me of Earth,” and that expression isn’t offense, per say, but has definitely known the emotion. “Maybe not _Earth_ in a planetary sense, but nature as Earth knows it.”

That seems to soothe at least some of the lines on the Vulcan’s face.

“If I may ask you, Captain, to indulge me?”

Jim chuckles at the formality and himself for enjoying it so much.

“It’s your compliment, Spock, you deserve to understand it, at least,” he takes a moment. Not hesitation exactly, not a fear based one anyways. “You’re always so sure. So sure that you’re sure. _Grounded,_ ” he tags on with a scoff. “What a cheap metaphor.”

But Spock only ignores it.

“If I am Earth then where would that leave you in this analogy?”

It is not the question he expects which in itself should make it unsurprising.

“Space, imaginably? Vast and unknown, restless. Volatile, at times,” he lowers his eyelids, a flirtatious flush called up on command. “Though not without my allures, they tell me,” he is ignored, again. “But you? With your balancing branches and deep sunken roots?" His head shakes and with it the smile wipes away, “I’m not like that, Spock.”

“You overestimate me, or perhaps you are simply too generous by nature.”

Blunt honesty wins the round with a, “I don’t think I’d know how to be less flattering. Not about you,” from Kirk.

Spock’s eyes shift, from one of his to the other quickly, consideringly, before they’re forced back forwards as he pilots the shuttle towards the approaching dock.

“I may seem steadfast, Jim, but it is only the outer layers of the tree’s bark. Even gentle winds and the quiet rains will eventually win the war of the canopy, you taught me this.”

His breath seems to rush out of him, returning in a sigh he doesn't remember requesting.

“That doesn’t exactly sound like a tribute.”

“Does favor apply in the matters of facts?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Your company has brought with it vulnerability.”

“Is that the gift of my friendship? A weakness?”

“It is, in ways,” and Jim swears there’s a wider smile to be found in the lines of Spock’s eyes than in most people’s lips. “Yet I am stronger for it.”

The hum from the shuttle dies as the landing gear engages, clamping them safely into the port. There’s a series of beeps from the controls as the atmosphere is tested, a robotic voice declaring their surroundings safe for respiratory breathing, before the harsh thunks follow as the locking mechanisms release the doors.

Spock stares at him a moment as their seatbelts remove themselves, eyes calm in comparison to the crashing storm of Jim’s heart.

_I’m going to have a god damn heart attack by 35 if this keeps up._

The sound of the Ambassador’s shuttle landing beside theirs forces them to acknowledge the rest of the world as it continues to move on despite their best efforts. Spock is standing up, walking past Jim’s chair to the door when something intense inside of Kirk forces his arm out, fingers gripping onto the shiny material of his dress blues. They will be spending the better part of the next couple of hours together but this will be the last time, most likely, that they’re alone before —

“You will do fine, Captain.”

He blinks, hard. “What if I don’t, Spock? What if it goes completely ass up like it always does with me and her?”

Spock tilts his head, eyebrows raising as he considers the floor on the shuttle before meeting Jim’s eyes with amusement in his own.

“Then you shall do what you always do, Jim. You shall try again.”

His human fingers pull tighter on the material as he rises to stand, much too far into Spock’s personal space. Neither moves as Jim takes another deep breath, feeling the way his muscles stretch around his ribs as he watches Spock study the skin of his throat expanding around a hard swallow.

“Thank you, Spock,” and he nods, letting go of the arm he’s most likely bruised.

Kirk takes half a second in front of the door, trying to shove away the moment with a shake of his head, before sliding it open and stepping out onto Aregan VII.

  

* * *

 

His mother is sitting on a stool at the bar counter when he walks in, trying to fight off the squint as his pupils adjust to lack of lighting. The current occupants don’t seem too concerned about his arrival; the type of indifference only day-drinking can summon from the few patrons inhabiting the place and a sole bartender who’s clearly not pleased about being stuck with the lunch shift. Winona is the only one who actually turns to look at him, an attempt at forcing a smile onto her face aborted as she turns back to her drinks. There’s a half full glass of something sitting next to an already empty one.

“Too bad it’s so busy in here,” he starts off, sarcastically, when he’s close enough, “it may have been nice to sit awhile and chat if we could have gotten a table,” gesturing theatrically to the, at least, dozen empty ones around them.

Her face cringes a bit, even the ruse of a smile having fled during the time of his approach, and Jim feels instantly guilty for taking the easy jab.

This thing they do, he always allows himself to be pulled into the vicious cycle of it. She’ll call and terribly fake a desire to see him, mostly sounding culpable for the fact that she only wishes that she wanted to — which somehow hurts worse than her not calling at all. Jim, feeling more like an obligation and less like a son, will walk into the get together the way one flies through Klingon space: Shields up, alarms blaring yellow, and torpedoes loaded. Winona will arrive in protective mode and Jim, feeling tense, will snap, causing him to feel like an ass, which _she_ will feel liable for. Only she wears guilty in particularly passive aggressive armor. She’ll ask him why they can never seem to just get through a meal and Jim’s already goaded annoyance will flare hotter for her even daring to pretend not to know, using the truth of his childhood to cut her in a way that only serves to further upset them both. Which is when the quiet always sets in. They’ll sit there drinking, picking at their food, until one of them apologizes, the other echoing it, and they’ll both only half mean it as they talk about what the weather was like on their last few visited planets like simple acquaintances would. A quick goodbye, a couple more faked smiles, and the promise of a call that feels more like a threat.

Jim can feel his hope waning already, the routine feeling of disappointment flaring as he asks himself the familiar question of why they even bother meeting up anymore. They ought to just film the ordeal once and both agree to play it back at pre-arranged times to save themselves the bar tab.

“We can get a table,” her voice oddly keeping level. “I just got here early and didn’t know how long you’d want to stay,” as Jim gets the attention of the bartender, pointing to one of her glasses and holding up two fingers.

“Starting without me,” chin jutting out to gesture towards whatever alcohol is sitting in front of his mother. “Feeling anxious?”

When the first of his arrives he barely lets it touch the counter before he’s chugging it back, clear bottom reached in a meager number of swallows. His next drink shows up as the empty one thuds its way back down on the bar, the bitter aftertaste of gin burning all the way down to his stomach.

“I wasn’t — I’m not,” the actual concern on her face almost giving him pause as he palms number two. “I’ve been here for over two hours, is all, had nothing to do so I came straight here when we docked,” he hears her say, even if his priority lies with the violent protesting of his throat as he throws back the second one.

“Well, you’re officially behind now,” his knuckle rapping against her still half full cup.

“Jimmy,” and he tries, he does, not to roll his eyes at the nickname, “I don’t want to do this again.”

“I don’t either,” not understanding why he can’t seem to calm the current of his voice.

His uncle had forced Winona to put him in therapy when he was 13 after driving a car, and nearly himself, over a cliff. In retrospect, as an adult, Kirk relents that he may have been on to something. As a child, however, he hadn’t exactly been a voluntary participant. All teenage James T. Kirk had to his name was a star-flung mother, a brother who kept trying to chase her, an uncle who loved him far less than the Corvette that now resided, in pieces, at the bottom of the quarry, and a father who only survived as a legacy. Therapy, he figured, wasn’t going to fix any of that.

The therapist had given it a decent shot, giving up on him far after he had given up on her, and Jim really can’t blame the woman for throwing in the towel; you can’t really help someone who just wants to be angry. He remembers the poster she had hung on her wall, right beside her chair, that they had opened every session with. _‘How do you feel?’_ headlined in bold lettering followed by a grid of exaggerated expressions. Jim had always picked the safe bet, dead center, _‘Fine.’_

_I feel like the entire negative hemisphere of your idiotic chart, Ms. Walker. Thing is, no one is currently asking._

Only Jim isn’t sitting in a bland office in an Iowan wellness center internally reciting the star systems of the alpha quadrant while pointedly ignoring a woman who he most definitely owes an apology letter to. No, he’s sitting in a bar he doesn’t want to be in on a planet he doesn’t want to be on, trying not to flinch away from his mother’s hand as it reaches out to grab his forearm.

“I know. I know you don’t and I know that the fact that this is all so damn hard is completely my fault,” Jim can feel himself still, like a deer hearing the sound of a booted footstep in the forest. “I can’t pretend to know how many ‘I’m sorry’s I must be past due on, but I know you deserve them all,” He blinks back at her, lost. They’ve never come close driving down this road before and suddenly he feels like he’s barreling down the middle of it, pedal jammed against the floor. “I just want us to actually be able to talk about it without one of us jumping ship.”

He knocks her hand away, more forcefully than he intends to, as his thumb flicks out to point towards her chest, “You think I wanted it to be like this? I was never offered another option.”

"What do you—"

“Your ridiculous tattoo,” and he just sounds tired. “You went and turned your damn heart into a tombstone for him,” Winona’s mouth opens, splitting her devastated expression in half, but he isn't finished yet. “You lost your husband, and your whole life plan, and I can’t imagine what that was like. But I lost the both of you.”

Her face morphs from momentary confusion to sudden, sharp, understanding.

“I didn’t know you thought of it that way, I would have tried to explain. I just wanted to see the two of you together —”

He can’t listen to this, not again. “We were _never_ together, Mom.”

“ _Exactly!_ ” She snaps back, her face immediately crumbling with guilt for it. Her head shakes as she takes a deep breath, swallowing hard before an audible exhale. “I’m sorry, I am. I understand what you think this is,” hand laying flat over where the tattoo’s located, “and I understand how pretty much everything I did when you were growing up only perpetuated that idea. But honestly, Jimmy,” teeth grazing over her bottom lip, a habit Jim’s inherited as his own burns with rawness, “he barely even knew your name.” Her voice going small as she decides, obviously still unconvinced that she should, to say, “I just wanted there to be at least one place in this universe that was for the both of you.”

_Oh._

“Well, I’m sorry for, you know, never asking.”

She scoffs, a bit. “I drew that map for you, kiddo, I can’t blame you for following it.”

“It hasn’t been just you,” she peeks over at him, the small amount of hope bleeding through creating a heartbreaking sight. “We both know I show up to these things in the same head space I would if it were a school yard fight.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“But you could. You could have played the, _‘Well, I tried,’_ card a long time ago and you haven’t,” she at least tries to look unconvinced. “Don’t pretend you don’t know that I’ve been dodging your calls for weeks. With his anniversary coming up I just didn’t—”

“Is that why you think I’ve been calling?” Looking genuinely surprised. “Oh Jimmy, no. Your brother is trying to throw you a birthday party and he somehow came to the conclusion that I was the best candidate for getting you there without spoiling the secret.”

 _“You?”_ And it’s probably mean to sound so shocked.

She laughs it off, not disagreeing. “I didn’t say it was his brightest idea. April 3rd,” she says with a nod, her whole face slightly stiff under a loose smile. Jim wonders if this is what he looks like when he’s feigning confidence on the Bridge. “It’ll be late, obviously, but I checked your flight schedule and you guys will be in the area then so we thought maybe… but if you can’t, you can’t.”

“I’ll try,” he says, meaning it. “I promise.”

She nods again with a fuller smile, the most genuine yet, as she starts turning her cup by the base. This silence is different from their usual, feeling less like a standoff and more like the breath one takes before hurling themselves into the unknown. He thinks about telling her just to drop it, that they’ve lived this long with their pile of unsaids. But something in her expression tells Jim that this isn’t a simple matter of politeness or paying a debt, whatever comes next is something said for them both. And he, maybe more than most, understands how unspoken words can fester in their cages, rotting inside of you.

It may make him a hypocrite but he forces himself to stare back at her, trying to convey with a look that it hurts less, in the long run, to simply bite the bullet instead of your tongue.

She continues to watch the glass spin if only to avoid looking at him as she finally offers, “We could talk about it? All of it. I can buy you all the hard liquor you can stomach and you can yell yourself hoarse. I wouldn’t blame you.”

Jim hates to admit that he’s almost tempted.

“I’m not officially on leave and I’m not sure the Fleet would absolutely love one of their captains getting into a bar fight with their own mother while on duty,” her responding chuckle actually making him smile. “Though I’d gladly take a rain check in writing.”

“Deal,” she breathes in deeply and Jim swears he can see the nerves starting to settle inside of her. “We could just talk about you, I never know what the hell you’ve been up to other than what I hear on official radio.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” and it’s mostly honest. “You know the Fleet game. Being a starship Captain doesn’t really harmonize with the concept of a personal life. I spend most of my free time trying to catch up on sleep.”

“Oh my god,” her face blooming into excitement. “Why now, James Tiberius Kirk, have you gone and fallen in love without notifying your mother?”

Jim nearly chokes on his own his spit. “How did you get to there from, ‘I don’t have a personal life’?”

She waves him off, still grinning. “Please. That standard issue response comes equipped with the chair. If you _really_ weren’t up to anything then you’d bolster up some bullshit about your last shore leave because you’d be too embarrassed to admit that you spent it snoring.” She gives him a knowing look. “Everyone knows that in ship-speak, ‘I spent my entire leave in bed,’ means you weren’t in it alone.”

“Jesus mom,” and he really shouldn’t be laughing, it’s only encouraging her. “Your version of a heart-to-heart has some interesting fine print.”

“Name,” she orders, complete with a ‘gimme’ gesture.

His head tilts down so his eyes can level with hers, “I promise you, the only one in between my sheets is me.”

“You couldn’t look more guilty if you were trying to. Are you really going to sit right here and pretend that there isn’t someone?” He refuses to lie which leaves him absolutely nothing to say. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, what? Those baby blues aren’t working for you anymore?” And it’s all he can do not to roll them as she stares at him, assessingly. “You’re not normally one to tap out when there’s something worth winning, what’s chased you out of the ring?”

He tries to keep his voice lighthearted as he bluffs his way through a musing, “I don’t know, I guess us Kirks just aren’t as irresistible as we like to believe.”

“If you think I’m dumb enough to not smell a diversion that thin then you have another thing coming,” raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“I’ll trade you.”

“Me? I’ll swear under oath that I haven’t been handing out any valentines.” Voice going rough as she adds, “After that prize of a man your step father was I think I’ve earned my right to simply sleep on leave.”

Jim only shakes his head, “Just tell me something about Dad.”

She hides her surprise under the guise of sucking her teeth.

“I hate gin,” she says finally, “but he loved it.”

“Well then, me and Bones’ bourbon toasts to him were way off,” he mumbles, joking. “Bones is my —”

“Leonard McCoy. It’s been five years and his delivery of those gorn octuplets is still brought up at every medical conference I’ve been to since. Though his rants on the fundamental hostility of space kind of proceed his actual medical reputation, which is saying something considering he’s definitely one of the best surgeons Starfleet has to offer. I assume you knew that he was offered a position at a base recently?”

“They warned me they were going to try to recruit him, though I don’t know if they ever did,” her eyebrows come together in question. “Bones never said anything to me about it.”

“Joan told me that she was only halfway through the proposal when he hung up on her.”

“Of course you abuse your ties to the admiralty to check up on me,” failing miserably to sound mad.

“What was my alternative? Call and ask like a normal parent?”

He sighs through a laugh, “I wouldn’t have picked up anyways.”

She skips being offended. “Your crew’s loyal to you, I’ll give you that. You’ve really done well, Jimmy,” and that's definitely a shade of pride that she’s wearing.

“It’s not just to me, hell, it may not be to me at all. I mean, Bones? Sure, I’ll take partial credit for him staying on board, but everyone else? We’d all be dead twice over without Spock. I can’t tell you how literally I mean it when I say that have no idea what I’d do without him,” he looks down at his hands under the pretense of picking at a cuticle. “The man almost makes me believe in miracles.”

“Your first officer? The Vulcan?” He allows himself to look guilty since he’s already been caught. “Well, you never did prefer the easy road,” not looking nearly as shocked as Jim wants her to be. “Does he know?”

“If he does then he didn’t hear it from me.”

She sizes him up before coming to some decision, expression morphing into that of a child being handed a rainbow sprinkled smothered ice cream cone.

“Did your grandma Mags ever tell you how hard I made it on your father in the beginning?”

“The way she talked about it made it sound like you two met at freshman orientation and were together before you even had a chance to talk majors.” Adding, “Is that not what happened?”

“I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘together.’ If we weren’t in class or getting the academy standard five and a half hours of sleep then we were nearly always in eyeline of each other but we weren’t _together_ — not in the beginning,” eyes brimming with amusement. “God, he was practically C.O. of the popular kids but would give absolutely anyone a second of his time. Came from a long family line of prestigious Fleet members but he never acted inherently better for it. Looks good enough to hurt, genuinely nice, and too damn smart to boot.”

“And that wasn’t enough to charm you?”

“Oh it was,” she laughs, “that was the problem. Your father had me so head over heels that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was terrified that I had it all wrong, clammed up tighter than a, well, clam,” eyes sliding to the ceiling as she continues to chuckle. “The more he flirted, the more I convinced myself it was all just who he was and I’d push myself two more steps backwards. I couldn’t have thrown him harder into the friend category if I had aimed for it, of course only to be completely dismayed when he pulled up a seat there.”

“And what? You finally gave in and confessed your undying love?”

“Does that sound like my breed of stubborn? No, I had persuaded myself into believing that someone like him wasn’t out there looking for someone like me and there was no way I was navigating away from that belief,” in a blink her eyes return to Jim’s as her head tilts, leaning onto her hand as her elbow finds the counter. “He eventually figured it out for the both of us. You know, he was allergic to apples.”

“I’m unfamiliar with that euphemism.”

“Did I mention that he was funny?” She waits for him to finish rolling his eyes. “Really though, deathly allergic to apples. I guess once when he was a kid he ate one and his throat nearly closed up on him. Strangest thing too, only non-replicated ones. But I’d always throw a fuss,” clearly enjoying herself. “We’d be down on a planet seven light years away from the nearest apple tree and I’d ask three different people four different times to double check that there couldn’t be any apples in anything that he ordered.”

“And _that_ convinced him of your undying love?”

“It convinced him of how damn much that I cared, that I wasn’t within a mental parsec of the level headed alter ego that I cloaked myself in around him. And once he figured that much out I guess the rest was pretty obvious,” shrugging. “I’d look too long. I’d smile too much. I’d try to start a fistfight with any gorn that dared brush past me, but him? He’d touch my arm and I’d lean in like a nuzzling cat,” she stares at him, obviously waiting for him to take over the puzzle piecing. “But he needed the grander context.”

“So you — you’re telling me that I need to show him, somehow, that I care?” Sounding pained even to himself.

There’s a chunk of raw malachite that’s sat on his desk for almost three years. They had been on a Class M, wandering away from the rest of the group after a rare peaceful first interaction with the natives when Kirk had found it. Spock had dressed himself up in disapproval, a long lecturing brewing on the tip of his tongue when Jim had announced that he was outranking him on the issue and shoved it into his bag to sneak aboard the ship later.

Spock had asked, weeks later, why Kirk had been so adamant about taking it. And Jim, too surprised by the question to better mold his response had simply said, _‘It reminded me of you.’_

_I laugh so loudly around you, Spock, so easily. I’ve shown you my tears, handed over my dreams, and given you access to the wounds I barely allow myself to see. But, god, do you make me laugh. How could you not know? Unless you simply don’t want to._

But his mother only snorts him back to his barstool, “Oh Jimmy, we’ve all seen the press photos. Subtle isn’t your color. You’re the George in this story, through and through.”

“Has anyone ever told you that the whole love guru thing isn’t exactly your best look?” She laughs, again. “I should — I should what? Hire a PI? Hold out a pigtail and see if he pulls it?”

“You know, I’ve met my share of Vulcans and every single one of them was programmed with some type of internal yardstick that’d set off a mental alarm if anyone got within a throw of them,” she eyes him over her glass as she takes her first sip since he’s walked in. “I don’t think I’ve seen a single photo where there’s enough room between the two of you to fit a sheet of paper.”

“That doesn’t automatically mean --”

“If you’re looking for guarantees then you’re playing cards at the wrong table. But the obvious answer is normally the accurate one,” she shrugs. “I won’t blame you for thinking my advice isn’t worth its weight. All I know is that I acted like I cared because I did.” She tries to smile as she coughs her way through another sip of room temperature gin. “And that your father probably wouldn’t want us to be martyr drinking this shit in his honor. You and that Bones should be kind to yourselves and stick to whiskey.”

Jim ignores the joke. “It’s not going to be that easy.”

And she sighs with a nod, staring down her glass with a look of disgust after emptying it.

“Damn right it isn’t. Good thing he’s cute,” looking prouder still when Jim’s smile truly damns him.

His communicator goes off in his pocket and he flips it open to find a message from Scotty stating that the engines barely needed half the work they had planned, “Ship ready to sail once you’re back aboard, sir.” He looks at his mother, knowing he shouldn’t be surprised that the one time he wasn’t looking for any excuse to leave would be the one time he almost definitely can’t stay. There’s 500 people waiting on just him, and with their next mission already assigned, dinner with his mom doesn’t trump any of that.

“God, I hope you believe me, but I really do have to go,” holding up his comm stream to her as his proof.

She looks disappointed, and Jim feels horrible for being so grateful for it, as she stands to hug him goodbye. Jim lets himself lean into it, wrapping his arms too tightly around her as her chin finds his shoulder.

“See you in April?” Barely a whisper and he only nods in response, ears brushing together. Her voice reaches a more confident volume, happiness inching its way back in as she says, “Sounds good, kiddo,” before pulling away.

Jim’s halfway out of the building, sun bright in his eyes again when she calls out to him.

“And Jimmy? Bring the boyfriend!”

She’s still laughing when the door slams shut.

 

* * *

 

“You are headed to Ghedeen?” And that creeping concern grows at the corners of Ambassador Spock’s eyes.

“This would be so much faster if, for once, you just told me.”

“There is nothing to tell. It is a fascinating planet, one that will serve as a fine addition to the Federation,” he smiles. “If, of course, you manage to win them over.”

“Want to tell me how he did it, save me some trouble?”

The elderly Vulcan shakes his head. “I do not think you need his help, you have done more than adequately on your own,” Jim holds his comment on _‘adequately’,_ as Spock’s lips part once again, considering. “Though, if you would humor me?”

“Anything for you, old friend,” Jim always enjoying the way it makes his eyes light up to hear the endearment.

“I have a,” pause, “a hunch that this mission will take you to the northern counties. It is beautiful there, and remarked as an area of peace,” his eyes meet Jim’s through the screens.

“A hunch?” Kirk asks, incredulously. “You don’t believe in hunches.”

An eyebrow rendition of a shrug is given in response. “Be prepared for ducks when you come across the red rocks.”

“That’s it? Ducks?” He waits, but Spock doesn’t relent. “There’s barely any water on the entire planet — I don’t believe they’ll even be a lake within a day’s drive of where we’re landing. I know that I haven’t made my way completely through the reports yet but I don’t think we’ll be experiencing any aquatic fowl, especially rabid ones.”

“It has been my experience that, where you are involved, the unlikely has an incredible habit of happening,” and Jim has very little grounds to argue the diagnosis.

“You’re telling me,” not meaning to let the slice of bitter into his tone.

“You still refuse to ask him, I assume?” This Spock seems to understand.

_I think my heart has finally given up on racing every single time I think of that patch of skin, the waves of script. It’s too hard to keep it up when it’s all I seem to find interesting in the world lately. The fervor of it has grown into a dull kind of ache that, I swear, I’m trying not to prod at. But when he looks too long, when he leans in, when he's everywhere, it’s hard to not linger on it. And when I do, Spock, when I do it feels like a tidal wave._

“I assume you still refuse to just tell me what it says?”

The smile etches back, small and undeniable. “Where would the fun be in that?”

 

* * *

 

He means to ask his Spock about the birds.

A second thorough run through of the reports had confirmed his initial belief that the planet of Ghedeen inhabited a grand population of zero ducks. However, the whole point of having a time traveling friend is that they’ve been there and done that, so taking their word for it, whether it sounded insane or not, will almost always play in your best interest. It had just been late when the comm finally ended and with the ship, at long last, moving past go-kart speed there were actually things to be done during alpa. He had been intending to schedule an after shift briefing with his First Officer but Spock had beaten him the punch, inquiring about them rescheduling their missed sparring session from two days ago. Kirk had thought about saying that he needed to go over some official business with him first, knowing, of course, that Spock wouldn’t mind. But Spock approaching him right after Chekov had mentioned a poker game to Sulu, as if vying for the first request of his freetime, had been too endearing of a thing to reject. It wasn’t like he couldn’t simply ask him afterwards.

And he hasn’t forgotten, he hasn’t, even as Spock pins him to the mat for the third time, wrists held tightly over his head as slender thighs straddle his waist.

“You are exhausted, Jim, forfeiting is the logical course of action when one is obviously bested,” adding another example to Kirk’s ever expanding list of why Vulcan trash-talk is such an incredible addition to the universe.

He fights the laugh, needing the energy as he bucks his hips up as hard as he can which causes Spock’s fingers spread as he attempts to balance himself. The loosening of his grip enables Jim to yank his wrists free, reminding himself that triumph is still yet to come. Kirk’s arms wind around Spock’s neck, warm and damp from sweat against his forearm, as he rolls them to the side. His chest pushes into Spock’s, grappling to center his body onto the sternum beneath him.

Kirk manages to grit out, “ _‘Oppression begets nothing but itself’,_ ” before making the mistake of lowering his pelvis.

A strong arm worms its way around his back, both of the Vulcan’s hands latching onto his left bicep and forcing it backwards, twisting his shoulder until he’s compelled by the protesting joint to give in. He rotates away, Spock quickly following, his front remaining pressed into Kirk’s back as the human makes it to his hands and knees. Strong Vulcan fingers snap under Jim to find his forearm, gripping it tightly and pulling it upwards, pinning it uselessly against his own chest. Kirk only has time to sigh in the form of a resigned, “Shit,” before he’s violently yanked, both of them rolling backwards into a two-on-one tilt hold.

His weight rests on his shoulders, knees forced into the air by Spock’s own, as his back is held secure against the Vulcan’s front with paralyzing strength. The silent count begins as he struggles to free his arm, One… Two…

“ _‘Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching’_ ,” whispered into his ear in obvious amusement as he releases the human on the five.

Jim is severely lacking in grace as he rolls off of Spock.

“Your quote is weaker, contextually,” Kirk quips, as if that’ll save face.

“You are weaker, physically. _Contextually,_ that is more relevant,” a raised pointed eyebrow punctuating the sarcasm.

“Bantering with you is a futile endeavor. As is wrestling, apparently. And don’t quote me my current chess ratio, my ego is bruised enough,” aiming for funny and hitting just to the left of it. “What a perfect title for when you write my biography, Spock; _Futility: The Complete Story of James Kirk._ ”

Spock stares at his still heaving chest from the two feet of distance Jim’s granted them. He’s sitting at the edge of the mat, breathing calm and green flush already fading even as Kirk lies prone on his back trying to pretend that he isn’t panting.

“Is there something you wish to discuss, Jim?”

And that only leaves Kirk rolling his eyes at his own stupidity.

“No, I’m fine,” he tells himself he only managed to sound believable because it’s the truth, “I think that last mission hasn’t fully shaken out of my system yet,” elaborating at Spock’s lack of response. “Oh surely you’ve heard of the Earth tradition called, ‘whining’?”

“I am well aware of the opinions you had about our last mission,” and, for once, it doesn’t read like an insult. “However I was unaware that it distressed you to this degree.”

"It didn't, Spock, really,” only Spock seems perfectly content to wait out Jim’s adamancy. “Are you telling me that you never get caught up in the pointlessness?”

He only stares back, brown eyes searching his own, digging down to find bedrock.

“You believe our time here to be pointless?”

God, when he words it like _that._

“That sounds so much more hostile than I mean it. If we were just speaking on a personal level then I'd obviously say no. These past few years have been the closest to stability I’ve ever known, which is probably too telling,” he pushes out a chuckle. “But when we’re talking the mission? There’s so much out there, Spock, how could we ever make a sizeable difference?” Spock’s face hasn’t moved, hasn’t so much as blinked. “You’re really going to tell me that it never feels like it may not be worth all the effort?”

Spock’s eyes watch him swallow as he finally sits up, suddenly feeling too open in such a vulnerable position. Perhaps it stems from the adrenaline of the match or the way Spock’s gaze can feel like a physical barrage or maybe it’s just his born and bred fight or flight instinct kicking on with the feeling of exposure.

“No, it does not,” in such a factual tone.

“This,” Jim’s hand reaching out, coming down too hard on Spock’s knee as he leans forward into space he has no right to claim, “this never feels, just slightly, futile to you?”

Spock remains still besides him on the floor, his eyes wavering down to the hand Jim knows he should pull away for only a moment before moving upwards to the open mouth where Kirk still hasn’t caught all of his breath yet. It's only when Jim’s tongue is about to crack another misdirecting joke about human griping that the Vulcan’s arm mirrors Kirk’s, warm palm curling over the cloth of his gym pants, gazes aligning.

“No, _it does not,_ ” he says again, this time with so little restraint that Jim freezes for a heartbeat.

He wants to say something, something worthwhile, something like, _“This isn’t about you. You could never be inconsequential, Spock. You’ve created a whole new purpose for me, a world with more meaning,”_ and he’s going to, he is —

“Och, sorry Keptin, Mr. Spock!” Kirk’s eyes pressing shut in frustration. “Te didne lock th' door! Anyoin coulda come bargin' in.”

“Thank you, Scotty,” trying, truly, not to sound annoyed. Jim forces a smile as he turns to the door to face his Chief of Engineering, donning clothing similar to their own. “We’ll try to keep that in mind next time.”

“Aye, sir,” and Scotty, redefining unsubtle, looks from Kirk to Spock to their hands and back. “Everythin' guid in hare, Keptin?”

“Perfectly ideal, Mr. Scott. Don’t let us keep you,” leveling with him in tonal overtness.

By the time the door is back to shut the hand on his thigh has been removed, Spock motioning to stand before Jim has even faced him again.

“Spock…?”

“The shuttle down to Ghedeen is scheduled for an early departure. I am in need of meditation and after such a taxing display of physical assertion you should properly rest before morning,” and Jim figures, it can’t be so bad if he’s still being made fun of.

“Logical as always. You’re probably right —”

“I shall see you tomorrow then, Captain,” halfway to the door before Kirk even realizes his officer intends to leave without him despite the adjacent nature of their destinations.

“You don’t want me to walk you home, Mr. Spock?”

And Spock actually declines as the automatics open, offering him nothing more than a, “Goodnight, Jim,” as he leaves.

It isn’t until Kirk is back in his own quarters, showered and still confused, when he realizes it.

He’d forgotten about the ducks.

 

* * *

  

The topic of ducks fares no better come morning.

The shuttle ride down is cramped and loud, and he’s unable to find the appeal of explaining the inane question to the group of young security cadets, and Ensign McGoff, who share the passenger cabin. Sillier still to pull Spock away from the group to ask later as raising suspicions in the home worlders as to why two commanding officers are sneaking off to speak privately is not exactly Jim’s ideal start to a treaty mission.

When he does ask a local dignitary about the regional wildlife she describes the various desert dwellers that are not too far fetched from Earth’s own. The translator bawks as it attempts to find the Ghedian word for ‘ducks,’ spitting out something that, at least, doesn’t seem too offensive by the merely confused look on her face. Jim decides to cut his losses and save himself the conversational run around, waving the question off with a shake of his head, changing the topic to the unique pollination methods of the planet’s fauna.

By the time they leave for their rooms that night, Jim’s cautiously pleased at how the day has gone. He’s convinced the Ghedians will make an excellent addition to the Federation once their local conflicts are resolved, however long that may take. He feels for them. They’re obviously eager to find a resolution, only slightly comforted when he tries to assure them that their willingness to find common ground with the rebels was more than he had been offered to work with at the start of many, ultimately successful, negotiations. The day had concluded with him hopeful, and confident, but tired enough that an asinine thing like nonexistent birds didn’t seem worth mentioning anymore.

By the next morning he’s convinced himself that the ducks are probably nothing more than a metaphor, an inside joke that will make sense by the time they reboard the Enterprise, and he’s officially shelved it on his list of priorities.

That is until the president is concluding their tour with the northern outskirts of the city limits and he notices the surrounding red rocks. He has just enough time to turn to his First Officer, question halfway off of his tongue, “Spock, have you come across any mention of—”

When he’s cut off by a voice behind him, latent panic dripping from the sound as McGoff shouts almost unbearably loud, “Captain! _Duck!_ ” as Spock’s eyes grow, in any other situation, comically wide.

And, _‘Oh,’_ he manages to think in the time he does not manage to duck, twisting up to the side instead with his arm raised in a protective manner.

He’s on the ground in the next instant, his fall to there missing from his memory, the hot sand already itching under the collar of his shirt. The world blurs and refocuses, his vision suffering each time he tries to pan through the complexities of three conversations happening all at once around him.

The loudest of which belongs to the Ghedian people. There’s a scrambled wave of explanations that these are the rebels they had warned them of, never thinking they’d come so close to the city boundary. The apologies are frantic, if he’s being kind, but at least the lack of poise assures him, somewhat, that he hasn’t been duped into a set up.

The second is occurring between his Security Officers, a swell of pride surging through him as they calmly assign tasks between themselves. Three break off to chase down the threat, phasers rightly being ordered to stun, while the others attempt to calm down the Ghedians. They sort out the closest source of medical help, the distance not sounding promising, as the team finally convinces the dignitaries that heading back, and out of harm’s way, will only simplify the situation.

Ensign McGoff, breaking off on her own, seems to be doing a fair job keeping her cool as she argues into her communicator. The words, _‘atmospheric interference,’_ the enemy to away teams everywhere, makes an early appearance.

And then there’s Spock, growing more feral by the second, as his sprint ends in a hard slide to Jim’s side, sand and dust kicking up around him as his hands grate against the earth to curb his momentum.

“Jim, _Jim!_ ” Fingers wrapping around the arm Kirk only now realizes has begun to lose feeling.

The horror in Spock’s eyes from moments ago has only grown more violent, his bared teeth gritting when Jim finally tracks the line of his attention. Where there should be a gold sleeve there is now only red. Too much, too quickly, to even make out the wound beneath it all. There is red _everywhere._

“I’m fine,” his body calling him out on his own bluff, vision whiting out for a second when he tries, and fails, to sit up. It returns just in time to witness Spock pulling his shirt, roughly, over his own head.

“Do not move, Jim,” green stained palms lift his left arm with precise caution, blue cloth worming it’s way carefully under his arm as a makeshift tourniquet. There's an alarming lack of pain when it’s pulled too tightly around his upper bicep.

His injured left arm is pinned to the ground by the weight of Spock as he leans onto the wound that Jim can just barely feel. Kirk concentrates on lifting his right hand instead, wanting to touch, and misses, barely making it halfway across his own chest before his muscles give out.

“Your hands,” staring at the way the small amount of green mixes in with the ever increasing red as Spock’s fingers press into Jim’s skin. “Spock, you’re hands, they’re—”

“Ensign McGoff, where is the transporter beam I have ordered?” Making Jim feel terribly for her as her fight to suppress flinching at the fierceness in his Vulcan’s voice fails.

Jim tries again, arm responding with even less grace than his previous attempt, though he does make his target. Fingers clutching onto Spock’s elbow as his attention is drawn back down to Kirk’s face.

“Funny,” he tries to flex his hand against the naked skin it’s touching, unsure if it's responding to his bidding, “I’m normally the one losing his shirt,” unable to laugh at his own joke. The air doesn’t seem to be in his lungs, leaving him sounding more like a wheezing old man after a hard batch of stairs than he would ever intend to.

“I believe your brachial artery has been compromised and that is the reason that you are losing blood so rapidly,” Spock leans in on his arm harder, only the vaguest feeling of pressure registering in Kirk’s senses. He tries to convince himself the lack of pain isn’t a bad thing. “We are going to get you back to the ship and Doctor McCoy will fix this,” Jim is trying to nod, he’s trying to, his head flopping to one side before a palm arrives to cup his jaw, fingers splayed over his cheek as a thumb hooks his chin, forcing his face back upwards. “Jim, listen to me! You must focus. Are you hearing me? Jim, open your eyes immediately.”

The desperation is enough for Jim to find the will, a sliver of the world returning, unable to force them fully back open.

“Your eyes, they remind me of chocolate,” and he watches the bulge of Spock’s throat move as he swallows hard.

The Vulcan twists away from him, to stare down at the Science Ensign, managing to hold her ground as Spock all but growls at her. His fingers slip just enough off of Jim’s face that his head starts to lull without the support, him more feeling than hearing the groan that leaves his vocal chords as Spock rights him again.

 _You know better than this,_ he tells himself. _Open your eyes, open them._

“Get me Mr. Scott on that communicator, now!” Spock barks at McGoff.

He wants to be able to blame Spock for being so coarse. It’s not her fault and all three of them know it. But imagining himself in a reversal, Spock laid out before him, green soaking into the earth below, as Jim’s forced to watch his face grow paler. Retaining formalities with whoever is unlucky enough to be the one refusing to give Jim the answer he needs to save his First Officer would not be his main concern. He very well may be worse.

“He’s working on it now, they don’t want to pull him off the boards since he’s the best chance at getting this fixed in time,” her eyes shift to Jim as she apologizes more than she states, “They say they need just a few more minutes.”

“Tell them that is unacceptable!”

Kirk orders his fingers to squeeze, ‘as hard as he can’ not meaning much right now. Spock’s angered expression is caught in stunning profile, the olive flushing his skin as the palm on Jim’s face begins to shake just slightly. Following the path of his spine to the sharp angles of his shoulders and back, Kirk's eyes trail down to — His fingertips make the leap, pressing against the marking, forcing his thumb to swipe over it with great effort. Spock doesn’t flinch as he turns back to look at him, his expression morphing dangerously close to that of grief.

“I never got to ask you,” and god, it sounds like he just ran a marathon. “I suppose that’s not an entirely fair thing to say. I could have, I wanted to,” _feeling_ like he just ran a marathon as he loses his train of thought. He searches the lines of Spock’s face for a clue before the heat of flesh under his touch brings him back to the question. He cuts to the chase, lest he misplace the thought, or the nerve, again, “What is this?”

His fingers fall away as Spock curls back over him. The hand on his cheek grows gentler, warm thumb skimming across his chin, brushing the bottom swoop of his lower lip. Jim can’t seem to find the power to move his own arm despite the desire to feel, to touch.

He can’t bare to look down at his arm, not willing to risk Spock’s attention sliding there to be lost in the damage. Kirk can only assume the Vulcan is still trying to hold him together, even the pretense of sensation gone in his limb. The numbness has spread, he thinks, to upper left side of his chest.

“Now is not the time, Jim, please.”

Kirk can taste iron on the back of his tongue and he tries, hard, to swallow it down. He can feel the way it manages to makes its way to his lips, undoubtedly reddening them, regardless.

“It really seems like it is.”

“ _McGoff_ — explain to them, again, that this is not a drill!” And Spock shouldn’t look so beautiful when he’s crumbling apart. “Believe me, Jim, I had meant to tell you.”

“You can tell me now, we’ve got the time,” trying hard not to sound pained when he’s aiming for lighthearted. “I’m your — we’re friends,” licking his lips around the lackluster word. “Aren’t we?”

“We were on Kona XIX,” and Jim nods, wishing not for the first time that life came with a fast forward button. “There is a practice there, one combining their touch telepathy and the art form not dissimilar to Earth’s tattooing.”

Kirk attempts to force his eyes, half lidded, back to focus. The Orion ensign resides in nothing but a vague shape and Spock, Spock doesn't seem concerned about the noise that’s begun to buzz around them, fuzzy like a just opened pop can. The Vulcan continues to speak despite it, and Jim makes his best attempt to lean in, his muscles not even giving the pretense of listening to the order as he continues to lie on his back.

“ — Nyota had asked me prior — believed my shields to be — how accurate — when I saw — you must understand — "

“Spock, I can’t hear you,” he thinks he says. He tries again, feels his lips moving around a, "Can you hear me?" That he, himself, can not.

Spock’s mouth is moving, his eyes wide as they fill with wetness. Jim tries to reach up, to brush the tear off of his cheek where it’s made a path, but his arm seems to have disconnected entirely from his motor senses. His head fights to roll back against the palm holding it in place as Spock starts to shake him, gently at first. Then less and less so.

“I’m okay,” he may, or may not, say, "just tired."

He only notices that his eyes are closed when he realizes how dark it is. They will not open. The sound trickles off until it’s nothing more than the static of radio in another room.

He feels hotter as the fingers move along his face, up near his hairline, and he tries to press into the warmth of it. A sensation fills the gaps where his others have left him, something sharp that snaps like electricity, working its way deeper inside of him, replacing the pain that has, all at once, returned.

_“I am here, Jim. Follow me, please, open your eyes.”_

He feels something wrap himself, something too tight and unfamiliar.

_“I can’t. I don’t.”_

There’s a sensation of being pulled, roughly, somewhere inside of him.

_“I will not leave you. Open your eyes, Jim, I beg of you. Come with me.”_

It yanks, harder, in a way he doesn’t know how to fight against.

_“Just. Minute. Tired.”_

There’s the faint impression of being lifted, like a child, but when he forces his eyes back open to slits, he has not been moved.

_“I will… Jim… asha… please… ”_

Jim ought not to be smiling. Spock’s about to rip the head off an undeserving ensign and he’s probably already dead if these hallucinations are any indication but —

“Ducks,” he feels his lips moving. “Prepare for ducks.”

Spock’s face disappears with the rest of Ghedeen.


	2. Spock

Despite his understanding of the methods behind the transporter system, Spock has never been able to claim that the sensation produced by the process has ever felt quite effortless to endure. By all realistic standards, the physical impression is limited, and not in itself unpleasant, but the mind seems to understand the oddity of the mechanisms involved. Though it should not even be able to know what is happening, and the logic of science should overcome the insecurities of barbarous doubt. The truth, for him, has always wound its way to a different conclusion. The technique of breaking down on a molecular level, torn apart and strewn, only to have his most basic fragments reassembled has never become a familiar feeling, remaining marginally distressing, if only on a subconscious tier.

Jim had simply always said that it _tickled._

There is little room, however, to worry about the accuracy of atomic realignment as he, and Jim, are finally surrounded by the long awaited lightened haze. Without thought, he wraps himself tighter around the body in his arms, as if that could possibly shield Jim should a malfunction occur, breathing through the feeling of being remade until underneath them the feeling of hot sand is replaced by the hard surface of the transporter pad.

“Whit ye thank you’re doin' clingin' on ta him liek 'at? Ah cooda spliced th' two of ye together!”

“I would not have had to, Mr. Scott if you had not been so delayed at bypassing the interference. The Captain has already lost, at minimum, 40% of his total blood volume and that is all while pressure has been applied properly. Though perhaps I should have stepped aside and allowed him to bleed out at an increased rate so you could continue to not do your job adequately—”

The sight of Nurse Chapel, followed by several Medic Ensigns wheeling a gurney, interrupt what would otherwise be a lengthy harangue.

“Where is Doctor McCoy?” Spock’s voice is sharp and full of apprehension, he realizes this in the same moment he accepts there is nothing to be done about it.

“He’s preparing the surgery room, he’ll be ready for us when we get there,” her calm demeanor can only aid the situation, he has to manually assure himself, it is not a sign of lack of caring on her part.

Spock attempts to stand, though lifting Jim while maintaining pressure on the wound instantly proves to be difficult, and he pitches to one side, nearly collapsing due to his refusal to drop the Captain. His arms, he notes, have begun to shake at some point. A sound he does not recognize comes out of him as the ensigns attempt to help, something feral like the noises I-Chaya had once made upon finding his schoolmates kicking him whilst he lay on the ground outside of their home on Vulcan. He forces himself to stop, finding it far harder than it should be to regain control his vocal chords.

“I shall carry him,” he states, even as he allows the team to remove Jim’s prone body from his own. Logically, he knows, he will not be his… friend’s best chance, though his mind howls at the loss of contact as his hand begins to loosen its rigid grip.

“Don’t let go!” Chapel barks at him and Spock, on reflex, refastened his fingers around the still reddening sleeve. “Get up here with him,” she orders.

Something about the simplicity of her tone gives his muscles the ability to rise, holding onto the arm as Spock climbs onto the cart, straddling Jim’s body as he centers his weight back onto the wound, trying not to note how much cooler the skin feels than he is used to.

Spock tries to focus on the lower half of Jim’s face, away from his eyes, dead with shock. He feels the width of the waist under his, Kirk’s hips widening the distance between his feet, the measurements recognizable from their wrestling sessions. Despite the human’s best efforts, and they had been commendable, they would end up in this position far more often than not. Him pressing Jim down, Jim fighting off both him and a smile. Only now…

1...2...3...4...5 he counts off, internally, as they enter the emergency lift. 1...2...3...4...5 he knows the mechanics behind its operation, how much faster it is allowed to travel than the basic ones which operate for the sole purpose of interdeck travel 1...2...3...4...5… he does not understand why it is taking them so long to reach their destination. 1...2...3...4...5… he stares at the way Jim’s mouth falls open as the gurney rattles its way out of the lift, lips so much paler than their healthy rose coloring.

Something is hauling him backwards in the next moment, arms looping around his to pull him aside. It feels like a current, dragging him away from the sand. He struggles against it, a completely new type of panic than he has ever felt before breaking through his shields as he fights to close the distance between he and Jim. The lights are too bright, there is yelling somewhere, smothered by a noise like static in his brain that is unbearably loud compared to the inner mantra of, _Yana shonai matoy, Yana shonai matoy, Yana shonai matoy, you will not die,_ that he tries to hold onto.

“Spock! They’re trying to help him!” Snaps him out from wherever he has just gone, the devastation in Nyota’s face echoing his own as she forces her way into his line of sight. “Come on,” speaking too softly for the circumstances, “they have to take him.”

“What in this bitch of a hellhole is taking so long?” McCoy adds to the commotion, quarantine door swinging open violently in his wake.

Their eyes meet from across the medbay, Leonard’s softening at the sight of Spock actually stumbling to remove himself from the cart. The Vulcan tries to center his own body, calming the quaking that has only gained more ground. In doing so he senses the way his own shoulders sag, his expression missing his normal target of neutral, reflecting what may be a picture of his true anguish. He feels wet with blood and tears.

Jim being wheeled by him shocks something out of his system, the redness of his body forcing out a, “Leonard!”

The Doctor looks back as he holds open the door for his patient, looking at Spock once again with mirrored dismay before the muscles of his jaw visibly clench as his face slips on the mask of composure that the Vulcan is still powerlessly grappling for. McCoy nods, once, before disappearing after their, still breathing, he forces himself to remember, Captain.

Spock can still hear the sound of the door sliding back into place when he feels a sharp pain in his hand, staring, dismayed, at the sight of where he has nearly thrown it through the wall of sickbay. It bleeds green as he removes it from the crushed cavity of plaster.

“Spock!” Uhura gasps, eyes squinting in a grimace even she pulls her voice back to side of soothing, “He’s going to be okay.”

“You do not know this,” and it sounds more like a plea than the statement it is.

Her eyes close as she steadies herself down into the chair behind her, head falling back against the blue wall with a light thud. She looks to the ceiling before looking to him, allowing the fear to show in her face.

“I know that you did everything you could have,” her voice sure. He swallows around a disagreement. His mind wandering back to the sand, to the red, to an unanswered question. The ability to work scenarios, to find another way, another path he could have taken to prevent — “Don’t do this to yourself, he wouldn’t want you to.”

“I am aware of this.”

He allows himself to wonder what it would feel like in the moment of Jim’s death for him now, knowing there is nothing to be done about it. Telling Nyota what has transpired is the logical choice of action. There is no guarantee of what will happen, accepting that even Doctor McCoy is limited to the laws of biology, and should the worst come to pass then his father should be informed of the true nature of what has occured between them.

“It’s going to be awhile, Spock. You should,” she gestures, almost apologetically, to the whole of him. “You should go take shower.”

“No.”

Her frown deepens, settled into disapproval. “I’m not telling you to go up to your quarters. The gym is right around the —”

“I believe I have made my opinion clear on the subject.”

“I will call you the moment I hear anything which, if you just think reasonably for a second, you know isn’t going to happen for —”

_“No!”_ With such force that, if addressed to anyone else, it would have caused them to cower.

Uhura, the close friend that she is, merely sighs as she stands up.

“If I get you a pair of scrubs will you at least change into them?” Spock feels his own fingernails pressing into his palms, deep enough to cut. “Sitting around, shirtless, covered in his —” she takes another breath, “smelling like blood isn’t going to help you focus, and you need to focus or you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Blood does not smell,” he has no rational explanation for why he is fighting her on this. He does not, obviously, have a desire to remain cloaked in a physical display of Jim’s possible demise. Removing it, however, and leaving it to be simply undone by the laundry department feels unacceptable. “It is simply the atoms of the metal breaking down upon interacting with the oils of the skin —”

“Do you really want to talk about this? Here?” She chuckles, humorlessly. “I still think it’s morbid. That blood only smells because it’s decomposing,” she looks at him pointedly, “and I still think you’re as blind as you are smart. That speech he gave you? About the copper pennies,” she shakes her head, “I’ve never heard something so obviously a proclamation of love in my life.”

“I cannot discuss this right now,” his voice back to shaking as her expression softens.

“And I can’t let you sit here smelling like an ironworks while you try to convince yourself that wearing him is somehow going to do anything other than drive you crazy,” she moves across the room to McCoy’s office, Spock opening his mouth to offer his override code when she punches something in herself, the door lock lighting up green. A few moments later she emerges from the office, refusing to look guilty, holding a pair of clean scrubs and a small towel that she wets in the hand-washing sink. “I figured Leonard would have a set or two lying around.” She attempts to be patient, seconds counted by before she gives into it, “Come on.”

He acquiesces, knowing her analysis of the situation to be correct, and having no logical counterpoint to argue it. In the silence of the office, the pants come off easily. The fluids have not been given adequate time to dry yet, saving him the trouble of the material adhering to his skin. He tells himself that the blotches of crimson on his flesh are only proof of his efforts, not of his failures as he does his best to wipe them off his chest. Upon re-entering the waiting area, he lifts the medical waste bin lid on an impulse instead of making his way to the laundry chute, the idea of these objects finding their way back to him causing a certain level of discomfort he does not care to talk down. His hand hovers, full of his trousers and the once white towel. He finds he must order his fingers, quite manually, to release them in order to get results.

Uhura is watching him when he finally looks at her, her expression the same one that his mother had worn when informing him of the passing of his maternal grandmother. He looks to the operating room, making it only a meter and a half before he is stopped with a, “No, no,” and a headshake, “nothing yet, I promise.”

He stares at the doors, his hand seeming to rise on its own will in the direction of them though he is nowhere near close enough to touch them. It drops, abruptly, to his side.

“As we waited for Mr. Scott to calculate a proper bypassing formula, Jim made me aware of the fact that he has known about the tattoo for some time.”

Though she seems unphased by his sudden choice of subject, she waits until he is seated next to her before she responds, “You know, when we first made that bet, after the penny thing, about whether you would tell him or not, I actually couldn’t believe you had agreed to it.”

“It was not a bet.”

A huff responds, “What else would you call it? ‘If you don’t tell Jim how you feel before we reach Kona XIX then you have to come with me to a Soul Inking, and if you do then I’ll stop harassing you about doing either.’” Another sharp look, this time paired with a smile that is obviously forced beyond her true feelings. “Sounds like a bet to me.”

“When previous methods of motivation have failed it is only reasonable to seek out additional ones for the sake of timely results.”

“Well, all you motivated yourself into was getting a tattoo,” she only is granting him the corner of her eye. “So you told him?”

He has no idea what this emotion inside of him is. Sharp and boiling over. There is a feeling as if it is being peeled off of the walls of his insides, as if something large and precarious is attempting to escape from the confines of his chest cavity. His heart has yet to gain back its preset rhythm, his breathing remains erratic, and, he thinks, if he were to allow himself, he would probably begin to cry again.

“I did not,” he finally answers.

He anticipates her admonishment, prepares for expressed disappointment, but neither come.

“I never actually asked you. Did it surprise you? What they picked?”

Spock is familiar enough with her mannerisms to understand when she already knows the answer to her own question. This is not an actual inquiry as there is no knowledge on the subject to be gained. She is, simply, wondering whether he has the fortitude to be honest.

“As I have told you before, I had not anticipated that my mind would be compatible with the process,” she waits. “However, though the fact that there were results at all could be called unexpected, the results themselves were not.”

“Yeah,” she sighs, again, her hand reaching over the armrests between them to lay welcomingly on his forearm. “Me neither.”

 

* * *

  

Doctor McCoy is not exactly a man that one would describe as owning a jubilant persona. Unlike most humans, the majority of his smiles live behind the mask of an arrogant smirk or the exasperation of an eye roll. On his kindest days, if you were to care enough to search, you may catch one in the very corners of his mouth or the crows feet framing his eyes. Though even Spock must admit that, despite his seemingly endless account of grievances, he is not, in fact, a misery to be around. At least, if you were to ask him on the record, not the majority of the time. Leonard McCoy’s legacy could very well be making wretched present as approachable.

However, the way the Doctor appears when he is momentarily appeased is only a pathway to his point. When one is speaking of a man that, Spock assumes, would likely be adorned by the same expression at both his own wedding and funeral — it paints a bold picture of how he may appear after just nearly losing the man he claims as his closest friend for the second time.

Jim had been in surgery for several hours, Chapel being sent out to the waiting area with updates often enough to leave Spock in a state of constant gratitude. They were nearing the four hour mark when McCoy himself had emerged. He had a presence to him that Spock could, oddly, only describe as ‘hollow’ though his eyes were bright enough that the Vulcan finally allowed himself to cease his internal calculation of pi as he started, instead, trying to calculate the amount of blood that the Doctor had been covered in.

“He’s stable,” he more mumbled than said, eyes staring at the floor short of where Uhura and him sat.

“You believe him to be medically sound at this time?” His tone had not been intact enough to fool any of them.

Leonard’s hand attempted to wipe the lines of exhaustion off of his face and failed with a sigh, “Yeah, Spock, he’s out of the woods.” 

Jim had been moved to a visitation room soon after, Spock being lead there without question of whether he wanted to be. Uhura had eventually left to make the rounds, informing the crew of the Captain’s status once Leonard had agreed it was safe to do. Both she and Spock had been left cringing when she had asked if he was okay enough to be alone and the most he could offer, while still being honest, was a, “I am currently functional.” His present state far too transparent for his normal rebuke at being asked such a question.

They had been back aboard the ship for over ten hours before the Doctor had finally resorted to threatening him into leaving long enough to bathe. Between the three available options of being kept out of medbay by force, being sedated and _‘hosed down,’_ against his will or simply attending the showers voluntarily there had been an obvious choice. Yet despite Leonard’s insistence that he would not be weaning Jim off the coma-inducing barbiturates for several days, the Vulcan had showered rapidly, breaking several of his own time records at the cost of one ensign who he nearly collided with in the hall.

Now, well into the fourth day of Jim’s stay in sickbay, the Captain has yet to awaken despite the medicine being out of his system for current total of 8.56 hours. Spock’s few attempts at shallow meditation had proven to be a futile endeavor due to the current state of his mind, the uncomfortable plastic of the chair not aiding his endeavors, as he continues to refuse to be further away than an arm’s reach. He knows, of course, that his presence has zero medical impact and that the consequences of him leaving are, presumably, none. Yet through the night he still could not find the desire to move.

Morning is signaled when Leonard returns for his shift, having only made it as far as his office in his pursuit of sleep. A vain undertaking if the purple coloring of his under eyes is to be believed. He grants the Vulcan a disapproving look before scanning the medical boards, seeming pleased with the information they offer.

“I must have been worse off than I thought,” his eyebrow mirroring Spock’s own as they raise. “I vividly remember telling you that it could still be days until he woke up and that you ought to go get some actual rest.”

“Your concern for your memory is founded if you have already forgotten that I had replied to your suggestion by stating that I was not in need of sleep at this time.”

Spock’s refusal to accede does not set the doctor off on the diatribe that the Vulcan has become accustomed to in situations such as these. There is a distinct lack of threats, no arm waving, and Spock is becoming increasingly worried just for the fact that Bones has not charged across the room at him yet.

“You know, you sitting here torturing yourself isn’t going to make him rise and shine any faster.”

Spock knows this to be an irrefutable fact. He also knows it does not change anything, saying instead, “It was my fault, I accept full blame for the Captain’s condition.”

Even with his eyes back to Jim’s face he is able to conclude the dramatic nature of the responding eyeroll in nothing but Leonard’s tone of voice, “Yeah, I know you do.”

“We knew of the existence of the rebels and should have concluded that higher levels of protection should be required instead of relying on the information that the Gheedens had provided to us.”

“And who made the call of how many security members to take along?”

Spock does not want to answer that question, “I should have challenged him on it. It is my duty as First Officer to instruct the Captain when I believe his judgement to be lacking.”

“I know, and you do. But sometimes the right choices just end up being the wrong ones and there’s not a damn thing out there besides hindsight that’s going to make that easier to see.”

“I feel responsible, still.”

A meager attempt at a smile is made by McCoy, one that soon finds its conclusion in the stiff line of his downturned mouth that will not seem to budge as he says, “I know that too.” Leonard shakes his head, not quite able to reset his expression despite the obvious effort. “Though the only thing you ought to be sorry about is the direct line I’m drawing between those bruised knuckles and my wall.”

Spock cringes, internalizing most of it as he decidedly does not look in the direction Leonard’s chin juts out to. “I apologize,” embarrassment slipping through the cracks of shattered shields, “Once I find the proper occasion for meditation I will be concentrating the majority of my efforts on creating better preventive measures so that the safety of the crew and the ship itself will not be jeopardized due to a compromise in myself. It is still unclear why my reaction was so much more severe than the... previous time.”

A laugh responds, sounding more like exhaustion, “ _‘The previous time’_. God. The fact that I almost have to ask you which one,” his head keeps shaking, as if on its own. “Do you really want the answer to that? Because I don’t need any fancy degree in logic to tell you if you’re actually dying to know,” Spock is unclear where his preferences lie on the matter, though McCoy seems glad enough to continue on without his input. “Of course it was worse,” and this time the Vulcan is well aware of what he must look like, confusion flooding him with the force of a desert wind. “You’re more smitten with him now than you were four years ago and that train doesn’t seem to be slowing down. It’s always going to get worse.”

Spock wants to say something, he even knows the vague idea of what sentiment he wants to convey, a request for mercy warring for priority in the front of his thoughts, clogging the passages to his tongue.

Though, conveniently, the doctor always has plenty to say.

“Oh, give it up. Or just _shut up._ Anyone who looks up and wants to claim there’s no sky to see should open their damn eyelids first.”

“What if I am simply residing indoors?” And Bone’s returning glare resets his vocal chords to off.

“I’m not going to argue with you about this, Vulcan,” before proceeding to do just that. “You couldn’t be more _obvious_ if you sat there blowing kisses and batting your eyelashes at him. Not that he’d be able to see it what with how far up his ass his head likes to reside. That kid couldn’t be more attached to you if you two morons had me sew you together!” The arm flailing finally commencing. “Don’t even let me get _started_ on the way you talk to him,” despite it being plainly obvious that Spock would have a more difficult time stopping him, Leonard barely taking a breath before, “You manage to make that technobabble sound downright lewd when Jim’s in the room. I should start paying Chapel to tutor you on the art of flirting. It’d be less painful than listening to your romantic musings about _dirt,_ ” there’s a pause in the ranting, long enough that Spock actually gets his mouth open before, “And the way he _looks._ ”

“What is wrong with the way that he looks?” Spock’s offended undertone not doing him any favors in this pseudo-fight.

“I don’t know, Spock. What _is_ wrong with staring down your First Officer like he’s the last, warm, slice of blueberry crumble pie at the picnic?”

He can hear the machine behind him. At the calmest of times his Vulcan heart rate is elevated compared to a human’s natural rhythm. Now, in the safety of sickbay, in the comfort of their own ship, he can feel the way his own continues to race, the wrongness of the tempo only accentuated in comparison to the measured blips coming from the instruments Jim is currently attached to.

“You cannot be as sure as you allege to be in the claims you are making,” a different source of desperation causing his tone to deepen.

“According to you, who couldn’t find your ass if your hands were in your back pockets,” Spock is unwilling to _‘prove it’_ and therefore does not contest McCoy’s unusual assertion. “Besides, I thought you were finally buying into Jim’s disbelief of no-win scenarios?”

“It is not that —”

Leonard’s hand comes up between them, stopping that sentence in its tracks. “I said I’m not going to fight with you.”

“You have spent the past 15.6 minutes lecturing me on a subject you continue to insist you have no desire to discuss,” battling against the wish to cross his arms over his chest like a human child, determined to keep his expression firm even as his inner self wars for the relief of unsubstantiated reassurances.

“I’m always prepared to hand out my opinion, I’m a generous man, but you’ve been lead to water, _you_ have to decide to drink it,” the doctor holds his eyes for a moment, until he must decide that his point has been made. “I know this isn’t your greatest concern at the moment, and that ain’t a judgement, but has anyone been by to catch you up on what’s happening planetside?”

Spock forgets himself, reaching for a communicator he can already feel is not in his pocket. He cannot even gauge the likelihood of when he may have lost it. Most likely, it either survives in the sands of the world they remain in orbit of or was burned with his trousers in the medical waste collection 2 days ago. Whichever the case, it is an unfortunate loss of resources that he is unable to find himself burdened by.

“No — I have only had brief correspondence with Mr. Sulu as to inform him that he would be acting as Captain until otherwise noted or in the event that our circumstances change. As far as I have been notified, they have not.”

McCoy’s face shifts from confusion to incredulity, “You haven’t been briefed in over three days?”

Defense begins to take over, “As I just stated, I requested that any updates should have been relayed to me.”

“I think everyone’s still a little shook up from all that _growling_ I’ve heard so much about,” smug being his accessory of choice. “I think the Fleet may have broken a warp record getting Admiral Lui over here from Rydurn. Don’t know why they bother sending you two anywhere, woman already has the Ghedians sitting at a table looking over peace treaties. _Without_ anyone getting shot or nearly ripped in half by a transporter beam, I may add.”

Spock ignores the jab. “She has accomplished this in four days?”

“She’s only been down there for three of them,” and suddenly the expression he wears is no longer so flattering. “Sulu will have to give you the actual details but it all stemmed from a misunderstanding over a territory dispute. The Currens, formerly known as the Rebels, use some of the quarries as their spiritual grounds.”

Dawning comes over the Vulcan, “So when the Ghedians began blasting through them to build more proficient roadways —”

“The Currens took it as a personal attack, thinking the explosions’ main purpose was to drive them out. Only when they tried to force the Ghedians to stop—”

“They believed that the Currens were trying to cut off their only route to the very limited water supply in the area.”

“And just like that, a miscommunication that takes one half-assed conversation to resolve turns into a two-generation long war,” he shakes his head. “It’s a shame, really. Think of how much pain and suffering could have been avoided if two people had just sat down and talked to each other?”

“Subtly is not among your talents, Doctor.”

“I never claimed that it was,” Leonard’s voice ripe with pride. “Now, you’re going to get some rest and I don’t want to see you back here in any less than six hours.”

Trepidation, Spock recognizes, begins to flare. “I have told you —”

“I’m not missing another good night’s sleep in order to put you back together once you actually have a heart attack from sleep deprivation.” Spock goes to argue, his mouth barely open when McCoy supplies the additional, “If I have to make it medically ordered than it’s going to be eight,” shrugging, “I’m happy with either, you decide.”

Spock concedes, knowing that he does not have the upper hand in this debate, standing before he moves reluctantly towards the exit. His muscles feel tense from lack of use, his back stiff from his spine made to hunch over the bed too often. Another sensation of fear, illogically, resonates. The intensity of it causes him to stop, turning around to look once more at Jim and then towards the man who has saved him.

“I have noted the diligence of care that you have provided for the Captain over the past few days. Your efforts will be relayed to the Admiralty.”

He is waved off before he can even finish the sentiment. “Just because this isn’t an official order doesn’t mean that you’re cleared for duty. Don’t think I won’t comm the Bridge to make sure you aren’t up there,” spoken pointedly. “We both know Chekov is more terrified of me than he is of you.”

“I am in need of a new communicator, should Lieutenant Sulu find occasion to contact me.” Continuing over the sound of McCoy snorting, “However, I will then be retiring to my quarters upon your request, as unnecessary as it may be.”

He is given his second eye roll of the discussion, on the low end of average for their debates, before McCoy starts making his way to his office. Spock’s gaze follows back to Jim’s face as he continues to sleep. The human’s chest is rising and falling under the blanket, proof that he has made it thus far.

“Leonard?” The doctor turns back to face him for the second time, the exhausted expression returning as the conversation withdraws. “How do you believe he will be, emotionally, when he does awaken?”

Under his medical tunic the Doctor’s chest rises and falls with a full bodied sigh, his eyes pressing closed for a moment as he sucks his bottom lip in between his teeth, head shaking in what even Spock knows to be heartache.

“From what I hear, he spent his last conscious moments watching you shattering apart in front of him, not knowing if he’d even be around to pick up the damn pieces. How’d you wake up feeling, if it had been the other way around?” And Spock, really, has no way to answer that. _‘Dismay,’_ being too placid of a word at just the thought. “I’m _not_ going to fight with you, but it’s time to shit or get off the pot ‘cause this farting around is only stinking up the house.”

“I find your bedside manner to be severely short of the expectations of your profession.”

“Fine then, I’ll make you a deal,” the line of his jaw making it plainly known that a simple refusal will not be an available option. “Either grow a pair or at least one of you has to stop fucking dying, martyr's choice.” He turns on his heels, marching into his office, yelling out, “We both know you have no goddamn shot pulling off the latter,” as the door whooshes shut.

 

* * *

  

He is barely in his desk chair before he is requesting the video-communication, fighting against the subconscious desire for his hands to shake as the accepted screen loads, pixelation transforming into the clear picture of his elder self. The older Vulcan appears unsurprised by the interruption, as if he has scheduled his day around the call, knowing it would eventually come. His face, however, wears a feeble mask of calmness that poorly hides his guilt. It is kindling on Spock’s already roaring anger.

“You knew,” he barks without greeting. The ambassador stares at the bottom of his screen, allowing a small nod as he too carefully chooses his words for the level of Spock’s patience, snapping again, “How do you justify not telling him, me?”

“The TrosLenes,” he holds up a hand at Spock’s confusion. “The people of Ghedeen will become an important member of the Federation in ways you cannot begin to understand. Their methods of water conservation will revolutionize the habitation of planets across the galaxy. However, they must first find a way to amend with the Rebels. This instance made way for a conversation that may otherwise never have happened.”

“ _‘This instance’_?” His voice still raising, “Jim has nearly died.”

“He did not, and I had hoped my suggestion would allow the circumstance to be mitigated,” he visibly swallows. “Though it seems I have failed on that front.”

“Indeed,” Spock grits back.

“I did not keep this information from you out of indifference. The knowledge gained from this planet will save the lives of millions.”

“I do not care about the lives of millions!” The proclamation shaking out of him from a feral place. The ambassador is unaffected by his words and, if anything, his understanding expression only brings understanding to Spock himself. “And of the melding? What justification do you have for not warning me? It is a cruelty to him to allow this to happen.”

This, finally, elicits an honest response from his alternate self.

“The meld?” He asks in obvious shock. Spock only stares back, trying to determine the source of confusion. “You have melded with him?”

He does not understand. “Are you telling me that you and your Captain did not experience a mind meld on Ghedeen?”

The ambassador shakes his head, “There was no time to. I made the decision to attempt to carry him back towards the city where we knew the interference to be less problematic, deeming my own sprint faster than the languid pace of the President’s cart and time more valuable than stress on his body.”

“We were over 15 kilometers from medical help.”

“15.72,” with a small smile. “Even at your age it was lucky I did not have to make it half the way before Mr. Scott was able to lock onto us.”

“A gamble,” a criticism fueled by his own self doubt.

“As is melding with the mind of the dying,” eyes warm as they lock onto Spock’s, knowing him far too well, of course. “I do not believe there is a perfect answer.”

Spock fights to hold onto his anger, “You should have warned me.”

“It did not happen for us until much further down your timeline. I did not know this would happen and still I have warred with the decision of whether to tell you, knowing that you both needed this to be a choice of your own making.”

“He had no choice.”

“His mind did, and it made it for him. What you share could not have been created by force,” voice imploring in the way it always reaches when the Ambassador loses the distinction between himself at a younger age and the Spock before him. He insists, “You know this to be true.”

Spock’s eyes refuse to stay focused on the screen, skipping to the side of it as he forces himself to remain honest, “This conversation alone proves that our universes do not always align. You cannot tell me that you know, with certainty, how he will feel.”

“That is also true, Spock,” some of the smile back in his voice. “Though I know, with certainty, that avoidance never served us well.”

There is no response to give, Spock feels himself unable to discuss this logically after days of no meditation, while Jim is still wired to the apparatuses of medbay, his muscles clenching at the thought despite McCoy’s assurances.

“Next time, you will tell us,” trying his best to make it sound like a command.

“If it is not at the cost of —”

“Do not compare his life to the mere possibility of the destruction of others in an attempt to appease me. You will not be successful,” leaning forward in his seat, meeting his own eyes on an older, more patient, face. “I would burn through worlds for him.”

The smile does not falter. “I know,” nodding, “and I know that logic will not win this debate,” holding his hand up, again, when Spock shrinks back at the insult. “I would not have accepted it either,” eyes skimming over his face. “You should rest while you can, though I think I am safe in my assumption that I am not the first to advise you this way.”

“Does he wake soon?” Irrationally looking to his new communicator, knowing he has just set it to the loudest setting.

“I was able to get him back to the ship faster but at a much higher rate of blood loss, our circumstances are very dissimilar. I am being honest when I tell you that I do not know.”

Spock nods, fingers forming the ta’al before a question forms in his mind that he cannot deny, “I have deducted from your responses that your James Kirk was willing to accept what occurred in a different place and time,” he takes a breath, telling himself there is no one here to fool. “But did he ever love you?”

The corners of the elder’s mouth rises to angles that would be considered indecent on their home world, his fingers rising in mirror to what Spock has yet to hold up to the camera.

“Good luck, Spock,” before the screen returns to black.

 

* * *

  

It has been 3.4 hours since the end of the call and yet his mind still lingers on it, pulling him away from the meditative state he continues to strive for. He counts out his breathing, trying to center himself on the sensations of his lungs expanding and contracting, as if that will provide a worthwhile distraction. Instead, it only brings forth images of Jim in their weekly yoga sessions, calm and determined.

Jim had never been quite able to fold himself into the advanced positions Spock himself could achieve, his human body fighting them on a muscular level, but Jim’s conviction had never wavered that it was, at least theoretically, possible. Kirk would watch him, tracing the lines of Spock’s body with his eyes, and less often a hand, stating with frequency, _‘I’m just biding my time. One of these days I’ll rightly amaze you.’_

Spock, not having the nerve or the foresight, had never offered his honest response: You do, Jim, invariably. Instead, offering a flat hand on the small of his back pushing the human down, gripping his calf and pulling it upwards, trying to say in tone what he could not in plain wording, _‘Effort is more than half of the process, you are doing admirably,’_ a cheap substitution.

A sharp sound brings his consciousness back to the now, eyes finding his personal communicator not 1.3 meters from him, confirming the source as it blinks blue. It is in his hand before he realizes he is grabbing for it.

“He woke up a bit ago, can’t find a damn thing wrong with him,” the text from Leonard reads. “Sent him down to get some decent rest in his own bed. I assume you won’t mind making sure he gets there without setting himself on fire.”

Despite logic dictating that it is just as likely that Jim will not have made it back to his quarters, having no way to accurately judge from the Doctor's words the exact time the Captain departed from medbay, he finds himself approaching the door faster than his normal rate of walking. He makes an effort to mask his expression before he reaches for the open command.

Effort that is shattered by the sight of the person emerging from the door to his left. The face before him mirrors the surprise inside of himself, eyebrows lifting away from their natural place even as his eyes flood with what Spock reads, curiously, as relief as he watches the Vulcan’s approach.

A plea of, “Jim?” escapes him without his meaning to.

Spock’s arms come up, fingers curling around both of Jim’s biceps tightly, clutching on as if he fears Kirk may run, or simply disappear, if he is not held to this place by force. Spock notices the way Jim is leaning in, breathing deeply enough so that the Vulcan can feel the expanding of his muscles and lungs, sense the rise in his chest with touch as he searches Jim’s face for, he thinks, reassurance.

He is wearing a clean uniform, items Nyota had retrieved from the Captain's quarters one of the numerous times Spock had refused to leave the medical ward. His hair is the same state of chaos Spock has witnessed it in the mornings in their shared bathroom, skin still slightly shy of its normal warm coloring, eyes full of a timidity not commonly found in this shade of blue. He looks beautiful, Spock thinks.

“Spock,” Jim’s voice is deep and rough from lack of use, eyebrows coming together as his eyes bounce between Spock’s own, “I was just coming to see you.”

There is a waver in his tone, Spock realizes, feeling the way Jim’s whole body seems to shake between where he holds him, just slightly. His hands squeeze Jim’s arms once, out of sync with each other and too hard, before commanding them to slide down to his elbows prior to letting go completely. The Vulcan does not quite suppress the end of a sympathetic wince when his fingers stroll too close to the bandage, feeling it thick under the gold sleeve. The human misses it, eyes busy scanning the hallway for witnesses when he must remember their setting. There are plenty, as always, only none who find their proximity of particular interest.

_If the rest of our world finds it so common for us to be oblivious of them, could I really be alone in this madness?_

“If you would like, I could join you, Captain,” he feels the small twitch of muscle in the corner of his mouth, unable to restrain it. Jim’s eyes draw there, knowing him enough to see the tell for what it is, as concern wins more ground in his expression. “Though I am sure you require rest at this point, if you would prefer to simply retire for the evening I will, of course, understand.”

Kirk keys in his code, pushing his way past Spock with an eye roll, “Back to ‘Captain’ so soon?” Their chests brushing against one anothers’ as Jim gives the doorframe an unnecessary berth, most likely minding his arm. Sarcasm rules his next statement of, “If I didn’t know any better I may think your visit only stems from politeness.”

“On the contrary, I believe my preference towards your company has been made clear.”

When Jim turns to look at him the human’s expression is one he has not yet seen before, a brightness cut with something of a stormy undercurrent.

Spock remembers, vividly, his first trip to the ocean after spending his early childhood in a world without seas. It had been fascinating to witness it in person. Impartially, it had also been terrifying. His mother had pointed over his shoulders, their toes in the frothy edge of the cold waves, finger aimed at a particularly calm section of water. _‘Riptides’,_ he had been told, one of his first lessons in the ways that even nature can lie.

_You remind me of them. So clear and assured in the aura you boast, but are you? My mother taught me that fighting the tide’s pull is a dangerous, natural, response. ‘You have to let it drag you out first,’ she advised, ‘you won’t be able to win against it.’ Is that the moral to be gained here as well? That the only way back to the sand is to first be pulled under? One could lose themselves to you, Jim._

He questions if Jim would understand, if any of his doubt could translate into a phrasing comprehendable by a man based in boldness and gallantry. What could Spock’s indulgent prose, brimming with childhood fears and inapplicable desires even mean to him?

“I should at least offer you the same. It sounds like I’ve gotten a considerable amount more rest than you have,” Jim’s fingers twitching at his side as his gaze lingers over the olive toned eye bags that Spock has seen in the mirror. “And before you lie to me, I’ve spoken to Uhura.”

He allows himself to look unsurprised.

“Waking up under Doctor McCoy’s care can be a jarring experience. I simply did not want you to endure such an event without, to use an Earth term, _‘a friendly face’_ ,” it is an adequate bluff from Spock, one even Jim may believe. Tacking on the evidence of, “You have done the same for me in the past.”

“You’ve never been out cold for _four_ days.”

There is an allegation ripe in the Captain's undertone that ignites a defense inside of him. He finds his shoulders squaring off as his jaw clenches despite the reminder that it is not in Jim’s nature to judge for the sake of it. The emotional compulsion that he has let rule him these past days has been undeniably telling and it would be odder should the human not question him on it. Spock is simply unsure whether he wants its story to be told.

“You would _not_ do the same?” He asks, forcing Jim to acknowledge his former decisions in this area instead of allowing them to discuss Spock’s own.

Jim’s amusement lives in the shine of his eyes, the pull of his mouth as he admits, “Oh, they’d have had to pull me away, kicking and screaming, like a petulant child.”

At the facetious candor, the Vulcan allows his own minimum amount of honesty, “My only regret is that I was not there when you awoke.”

Spock realizes, as they both stand in the middle of the room, choosing their words carefully, the cause of their prelude. 

They have, in the past, talked two warrior races back from the brink of a world shattering apocalypse with nothing but verses of better ways and fragile pledges of possibilities. He, and Jim, have convinced whole civilizations to reach for their better selves with nothing but a talent with words and strong held beliefs. He knows how to spin a sentence, Jim how to express a hope, and them both how to plead for the happy endings of others. However, give them matters of their own wantings to discuss and their petition to convey a simple phrase will trip upon a clumsy tongue.

Jim makes his way over to the small table in the corner of the room where they typically play chess, taking his normal seat. This piece of furniture had been a present from Spock himself, given to Kirk several years ago, on a day lacking in occasion, after being bought rashly on a shore leave. Sentimentality, he can admit now, was the only rationale in the purchase. The lighter of the woods had too closely mimicked the goldenmost strands in Jim’s hair, the ones only hours in true star light have ever brought out. The inlays were made of something similar to Earth’s walnut, a dark hue that reminded him of the warm loaf of pumpernickel bread that Jim had once compared his eyes to over an unreplicated planetbound meal and, on the human’s part, too much wine.

It had been an audacious buy, too high in credits by at least a third of its total price, and worth it to watch the way Jim nearly sputtered when Spock had announced it was his, if he wanted it. The late response, _‘I couldn’t...’_ brimming with gratitude. Their next chess game had been the first out of the recreational room, the first of many in Kirk’s quarters, and Spock could not have defined then the way that he felt upon first seeing it in its now long lived home. The entire suite had been rearranged to make a place for his gift, given without thought to how much space it would require in a room with so little to give.

In the now, Jim prompts him with a look, and Spock follows him willingly, neither making a move to set up the board from where it resides on the shelf below.

“Promise me you’ll at least try to go easy on the two of them, they were just looking out for you. Which is exactly what I would have ordered them to do had I been conscious to do it,” though the Captain appears to already know what the answer will be.

Spock catches Jim looking at his hands where his fingertips have spread out over the edges of the checkerboard inlay. The Vulcan’s knuckles still bear a slight discoloring, with clutters of scabs where days ago there had been shallow scrapes. Kirk makes no attempt to hide where his interest lay, staring unabashedly.

“What is on your mind, Jim?” Spock asks instead, refusing to state a promise he has no intention of keeping.

“Your hands,” and Jim gestures to them, his pointer finger crossing half the distance to Spock’s own. “Your bruises — I swear they’re the exact same color as the fake Christmas tree my grandmother put up the year Winona actually took us to visit for the holidays,” Spock fights the urge to hide them, knowing it will only accentuate his guilt. 

“The coloring should be a normality to you by now, you have seen injuries on me before.”

“I was just surprised Bones didn’t heal them is all, he must have forgotten to mention to me that he misplaced the skin regenerator,” and this time there is no mistaking Jim's words for anything other than an accusation.

“I assume the device is sound in its normal place. He did not heal them because I did not ask him to,” Spock says, telling himself that orbiting an actual answer is still better than not answering at all.

“He didn’t even offer?” Jim’s face poised with the confidence of someone who already read this script. “Uhura was in medbay when I woke up. She told me how long you stayed, that even after Bone’s threatened you with a medical leave you still wouldn’t go until she got back,” Kirk takes a breath, eyes closing for the duration of it, the self assurance waning on the exhale. “She told me that she knew about pennies. Well, not about _pennies,_ but you understand.”

“I understand that she did not explain to you her prior knowledge of the existence of pennies,” and the expression on Jim’s face makes it plainly known that he is not shocked at Spock’s refusal to meet him halfway.

“That stupid Class M, Jirros? I think they ended up naming it? The one that the Fleet solemnly swore had been scanned for sentient lifeforms, coming up negative half a dozen times at least?” Spock offers no reply right away, confident in his assumption that Jim is well aware that they both must remember the planet on which the First Officer had nearly died. Jim takes another precarious breath. “You remember, don’t you?”

Spock’s eyes stay settled on the space between their hands.

“I assume that you are referring to the incident that took place that resulted in my need for medical attention and not the presence of the actual planet itself,” he pauses, using the moment of silence to steel his nerves enough to meet Jim’s eyes.

“A ‘yes’ would have sufficed,” Kirk tries to joke back, fingers twitching in front of them both. “That spear, it was in you before I could even realize what was happening,” his throat expanding forcibly around a swallow, “I could never figure out whether I saw the point of impact or not. I remember it being in the air, knowing it wasn’t aimed for me, and I remember _you,_ and seeing on your face that you had already calculated a lack of time to move out of the way. So I must have seen it but I just can’t ever—” he licks his lips, biting his bottom one as he shakes his head violently, eyes momentarily widening at the disorientation it leaves. “Every functioning brain cell I had told me we shouldn’t take it out, I _knew_ we shouldn’t take it out. You know that I know better than to remove the object plugging the wound,” Spock nods, slowly, not sure if there is actually a question being asked. “But seeing that _thing_ sticking out of you, the emotional part of my mind couldn’t stand it being there. And you, with your internal organs run through, had to talk me off of some mental cliff of hysteria.” 

“It provided a sufficient distraction for the both of us.”

“You _would_ think a lesson on the science behind metallic smells was a perfectly sufficient thing to bleed out to,” Spock remains silent, finding no reason to correct him on this. “I still get mad every time I think about what you told me, down there, you know?” Jim shakes his head again, before seeming to start over, “When you first started to explain it, it didn’t seem to be more than an anecdote? A homeworld with such a different climate than Earth's would result in vastly different micro-evolutions in the residing species. Creating, in turn, a race that produces skin oils that vary wildly in composition to that of a human being’s. All leading up to the conclusion that a Vulcan's skin doesn't cause the same touch reaction in metals, which means they don’t give off the smell a human does when in contact with copper rich blood.”

“I did not mean to upset you with this information,” Spock replies, not understanding where to find relevance in Jim choosing to speak of this, now of all times.

“It didn’t, at first. It was just another way that you, my resident half-Earthling, were a unique and splendidly peculiar thing,” Kirk dips his head when Spock does, chasing eye contact. The Vulcan allows him to win, for now. “And there I was, sitting there so idiotically delighted for knowing the universe’s only Vulcan who smells like old Earth currency, the both of us soaked in so much green, when you begin to tell me how the other children only saw it as another bullet point to wield against you. How they’d push and shove and tear your skin just to prove you were different. How they hid behind delusions of _scientific curiosity_ in order to cause you pain just because they found you to be other.”

He wishes to ease the affliction off of Jim’s face, to reassure him that he has been an ample well of resiliency for Spock to drink from. Kirk has made him feel, more than any other being, accepted and wanted. He has made Spock feel _chosen._

“It is the past, Jim, I am not there now.”

“But do you still believe them?” Spock finally looks away at this, the devastated look on Jim’s face too much to bare on top of his own. “Oh Spock. I can’t help but feel partially to blame for that,” Spock opens up his mouth to protest, eyebrows coming together in a distraught reaction. “Don’t fight me on this, I know that I am. I wanted to tell you then, but the pretense of gauging blood loss and the echoing of a clock ticking down were too easy to hide behind. I should have told you instead of shielding my pride.”

“There was no revelation to disclose to me. I am aware now, as I was then, that you do not share their sentiments,” he says with the ease of facts long ago proven.

“Are you sure, Mr. Spock?” His eyes immediately return to Jim’s on the pause. “Because I was about to say, they were absolutely right,” the chosen tone is filled with enough care that Spock is able to answer with patience instead of panic. “You are nothing like them. A beauty lives within you that I’ve never known before, not in the whole expanse of this galaxy we’ve seen. Whoever built you gave you someone else’s serving of intelligence, of strength, but I think that you just choose to be too kind.”

Confusion begins to win the battle of his fight to stay calm. “I —”

“Your eyes remind me of chocolate. I know I said that before, when I was — but I don’t want you to think it was just the ramblings of blood loss. They do, Spock, like the deep brown kind you bake with. And the way you quote poetry? Makes me believe there’s a meaning out there somewhere to all that’s always perplexed us. I look at you and realize that homes aren’t built of bricks and mortar but of other people.”

He cannot hear this when he is already this compromised. “Please —”

“And the entire time I sat in medbay, listening to the beeping machines, having no idea what they were trying to tell me, while they pieced you back together bit by bit. I kept thinking, and thinking, of all I could have said as I watched you grow paler. How I spent those moments jostling you, trying to find a way to hold you closer, when I should have been saying —” Kirk stops, rubbing at his temple, roughly, before a scoff. “Only I couldn’t stop talking about the jar of antique coins my uncle had on his mantle and how you smelled just like those red copper pennies did when he let me rummage through them,” Jim’s eyes find their way back to him in a heartbeat, managing to somehow look dauntless despite the fear Spock knows lives inside of the man before him, “instead of just telling you how very much in love with you I am.”

Nothing changes, not in a physical sense. The walls of the room do not shrink in upon them, the lights are steady without flicker, and the floor remains solidly beneath him. Jim does not seem to notice at all, if the surety of his expression is anything to judge by. Which leaves Spock alone in his wonderment at how subtle the entire universe transforming can be. How simple, how quiet, without warning or pomp and circumstance. He wonders if this happens all of the time, the entire cosmos rearranging over soft spoken sentences, worlds collapsing and rebuilding themselves over simple proclamations.

Kirk holds his eyes, as Spock finds enough of himself to manage a painstaking, “Jim,” without knowing, himself, what he is begging for.

The space between then is finally swallowed as Jim reaches out, fingertip lightly brushing over the scabs on Spock’s right hand.

“My hands looked just like this afterwards, only much more red. And I wouldn’t let Bones fix mine either,” Kirk touches him delicately at first, as if waiting to see if the Vulcan will pull away as he traces the valleys connecting Spock’s fingers. He does not move them. “I think I convinced myself that so long as I had proof, something physical and undeniable, that I had tried my best then it would save you somehow,” scoffing at himself, disguised as a chuckle. “Must sound fairly foolish to you.”

“It is an illogical thought,” feeling the way his own eyes warm as understanding centers him.

His hand flips over under Jim’s, hiding his injuries. Fingers bending at the first knuckle, hooking Jim’s own so their middle three finger pads press together. Spock’s thumb sweeps across the range of Kirk’s knuckles, the cool skin pleasant against his own.

“Yeah? Well logic and us haven’t seemed to be common bedfellows.”

Spock opts to ignore the comment as he continues to stare at their hands, feeling the way Jim’s shakes as his own heartbeat surpasses the tier of merely racing.

“Are you familiar with the practice of tattooing on Kona XIX?” Jim’s face contorts into a deep kind of confusion, Spock quickly adding, “You inquired about mine as we waited for engineering to initiate our transport back to the ship.”

“Right,” Jim says, slowly, quite obviously convincing himself to have faith. “I don’t think I know the whole of it, only that it involves the ceremony of a priest reading your mind and using that meld to personalize a design based off of whatever they see. That there isn’t exactly much of a discussion between ceremony and the actual inking,” he considers his next words, before relenting them over, “I have to admit, I was more than a little shocked when I heard you’d signed up for such a thing.”

Spock’s face makes plain his curiosity. Jim has already clearly drawn the line between Kona XIX and the lettering on his skin prior to them conversing about it. He adds this to his list of topics to discuss the next time he and his alternate self find themselves in need of communication. The area where his elder self has drawn the line between information he considers imperative enough to risk the natural timeline of their universe and knowledge he does not has once again blurred past the boundary of Spock’s understanding.

“I had previously made a promise to Uhura that I did not keep and this is what she chose as penance,” Jim’s face shifting into something that is decidedly concerned. Spock offering in way of her defense, “She assured me that the ink was fairly easy to remove, should I desire to undergo the process, and that she would not prevent me from doing so,” possibly, also, in defense of himself.

“It wasn’t a judgement, Spock, only a statement,” meaning it.

“You seem to have a basic understanding of the practice with one main deviation: The priests of Kona XIX are not simply telepaths but instead bear abilities much more similar to what you would know as an empath. They possess extremely powerful and precise skills, the strongest I have ever encountered in this particular concentration of capabilities. They do not practice mind melding, as a Vulcan would, which would follow a logical path in order to locate a source of importance to the client which would then be used as a subject matter. On the contrary, they operate on an almost exclusively emotional level and draw out the traces of strong feelings within the viewed, as if unraveling a sweater down to its basic components.”

“And you’re the sweater in this process?”

“Essentially.”

“It sounds,” Jim cringes, “invasive.”

“It is,” not bothering to hide in his tone that he will, emphatically, not be a returning customer. “They tried to explain prior that it is not as simple as finding a place or an object that we attach significance to, but a much more complicated coalescence of not only what the observed holds dear but what they are proud of, what they seek in the grand unknown, what they most want the universe to see in themselves,” he swallows, hard. “I did not actually believe it would work for me,” making Jim snort, his opinion on the relationship between Spock and his emotions summed up in a singular noise.

“But it did?” Spock nods “That’s a lot to pack into a single tattoo,” Spock nods, again.

“They can not speak to you while in the joining, but rather convey vague sentiments. I knew where they were — what they had found,” his knuckles pull tighter on Jim’s. “Uhura received an Eulophia Orchid, a flower indigenous to where she was raised in the United Nations of Africa. She expressed to me that it symbolised a lifelong struggle with the underestimation of her value and her desire to overcome such obstacles without losing the connection to her past.”

He is well aware that the Captain has been in enough negotiations to see a distraction tactic that elemental from several light years away.

“And you received that?” Jim asks, gesturing with his free hand in only the vague direction of Spock as a whole.

“Yes.”

“You’re burying the lede, Spock. Are we ever getting to the part where you tell me what it says? Or, at least, what the hell it has to do with me?”

“It has everything to do with you,” his other hand comes up on the table, palms bracketing Jim’s own between them. He stares at them before he allows his eyes to follow up the line of Kirk’s arm, pausing at the bulge of gauze under his sleeve, finding their way back to his face and to his eyes. Jim stares back at them, blue eyes wide open and most definitely wary. He does not even attempt to assess what his own must look as he confesses, “It says, _James Kirk._ ”

It appears as if someone has created a perfect likeness of Jim, a wax figure or an android that has run out of power. Or, perhaps, just poured his Captain full of concrete and left him there. Spock holds his gaze, not daring to blink as Kirk works his way to the end of the maze, eyes suddenly full of an emotion that could easily be desperation. Spock does not understand what is being asked of him, yet knows that he is more than willing to oblige the request without considering the cost of doing so, the same emotion fueling him now as the one responsible for the table currently residing between them.

“It says,” Jim begins, speaking the way one does in a tongue they are not familiar with, “James Kirk?"

Kirk’s eyes watch his, the layers of blue conveying a longing that Spock has lived for too long.

Spock moves his hand to slide down Jim’s own, fingers wrapping around his wrist too tightly as the thick of their palms press together. He can feel that his own is damp with sweat, his whole body warmed from adrenaline, but either Kirk is too lost in his confession to notice or at least too consumed by it to care as he holds them together with responding force, the shaking ceasing with the clenching of his muscles.

His voice is gravel rocks and bass as Spock answers plainly a truth he has known for years, “You have always been the best of me, James.”

“You can’t just say things like that,” Jim blurts out, his own face portraying his surprise at the force of it. “Us humans, we’re a sensitive, overacting crop. You _know_ this. If you say things like that, then I’m going to insist that I be allowed to keep you.”

“You humans, indeed, delight in creating problems where there are none. You desire to keep what wishes to be kept by you, the deal is done.”

Spock slowly releases his wrist, rising from the chair as Jim watches him, rotating in his seat to follow the Vulcan’s journey around the small table, face irrationally handsome in its vulnerability. An overwhelming emotion, raw and hopeful, solidifies inside of Spock as he drops to his knees, placing himself on the floor in front of Jim. For a moment, Spock simply inhales and exhales, waiting until Kirk’s own breathing matches the measure of his own before extending out his pointer and middle finger towards Jim, letting his elbow rest gently on the human’s thigh.

Jim eyes them for a second before returning to Spock’s face and seems to find the nerve in the Vulcan’s calm expression, mirroring his own fingers. He holds them in place, uncertain, leaving it for Spock to be the one to close the gap. The four pads of their fingers come together, lingering there while a sensation begins to grow, before slowly rubbing his own up and down Jim’s in a diligent rhythm. There is a buzz building, winding further than just places where skin connects. The line of whether it exists in a physical or mental state blurring the longer that it goes on.

“Spock…?”

His question is obvious in his tone, though the confusion inside of him runs deep enough that Spock can feel it through the contact. His own nerves finding footing again as he watches their fingers slide against one another.

“This is kissing on my world,” his Captain’s face morphing into one of horror as he must recount the prevalence of hand contact their interactions seem to result in. “The fault is not yours. I have been… decidedly uncareful in avoiding this type of contact with you. I have not always acted in a way becoming of a Starfleet officer where you are concerned.”

“Yes, because I’m one to judge in that arena,” Jim jokes. “Is that why it feels different? Because it's more intentional?”

The amusement inside of Spock leaves as quickly as it came, rapidly.

"Something occurred down on the planet, an incident, that you will have to believe me, was not my intention," a fear lurking in Spock's undertone, deep enough to hurt.

“Spock, neither of us meant for that to happen—”

The human is cut off with a violent shake of Spock’s head, fingers spreading to weave between Jim’s, palms pressing together in intimate contact he does not deserve.

“You continued falling in and out of consciousness and I was finding it increasingly difficult to focus your attention. I had resorted to screaming your name, shaking you violently, but you — you kept claiming your eyes would not open,” his own finding Kirk’s, the Captain’s eyes reflecting his own unease. “I _hit you,_ Jim.”

“You think I’ve never had to slap a crewman out of shock? I understand —”

A hand squeezes, painfully tight, bidding for silence.

_Save your kindnesses, lest you regret them once you know the truth._

“I could think of no other way to keep you lucid other than to perform a mind meld. It is a violently invasive infringement of your privacy and I would not normally resort to such measures without consent. I could think of no other way.” Serious when he offers, “If you wished to bring me up on charges with the admiralty I would not hold you in blame.”

“God, Spock, do really think I could do that? I’m not mad,” Jim wielding sincerity so steady that Spock is filled with it. “I get why you think there was an important lack of permission on my part but you had every right to assume I’d rather that than dying.”

“There was no guarantee that I would be able to bring you back from where your consciousness had slipped to, the breach of your trust could have been for nothing. I was just barely successful," Spock's pride abandoned as he implores Jim for the absolution of sins he has not yet confessed.

“Wait,” with sudden realization, “what would that have done to you? If I had — if I hadn’t made it when we were still joined that way?”

“I do not know. It was not my greatest concern in that moment.” He tries to hide a cringe in the pretense of a blink. “I had to try, Jim, you must understand. You _must_ forgive me.”

“For putting your own life on the line like that? Don’t you think you’re getting off that easy. If something had happened to you… we won’t be resorting to that again.”

Spock leaves the, _‘We shall see,’_ unspoken, before, “For what happened in the meld.”

“I’ve told you, there’s nothing to forgive,” Jim moves his second hand up to bracket the pale one still clutching his own. Fingertips roam softly over the back of Spock’s, trying to ease the pronounced tendons there. Spock allows him to despite his guilt which only burns hotter with the addition of, “It isn’t like you did any lasting damage, I was already this illogical before you got involved up there.”

“You are incorrect,” eyes flicking frantically from one of Kirk’s to the other, as if hoping, somehow, that Jim will come to the correct conclusion on his own means, Spock’s eyes falling to his mouth when it is clear that he will be without help. “When I made the decision to join our minds I did not realize how badly my shields were faring. I was not myself, if I had known —”

“We bonded?" Spock’s face falls at Jim's dismayed tone, “Do you — I mean, it’s removable, right? Next time we’re near New Vulcan we can—”

“It is a t’hy’la bond,” looking down to Kirk’s chest, cowardice sending Spock’s attention away from his eyes. “I believe that attempting to remove it would greatly injure you.”

"And you?" The cringe that follows is more blatant than the former, impossible to mask. “But you’re not sure?”

“There is no record of anyone attempting to remove a bond like the nature of ours.”

“Then I’m sorry, Spock, but I won’t do it,” curiosity blooming inside of the Vulcan even as his gaze refuses to budge from Jim’s sternum. Kirk continues, firm with a decision already made, “If it were just me, but I’m not going to risk your life over it. We can do whatever we have to. We can minimize touch, I can learn how to shield, whatever you need. But I’m begging you not to ask me to lose you over this.”

A dawning happens, brown crawling up to finally meet blue, a pairing of his own tentative hope found in the high arches of his eyebrows, wide eyes and open lips.

“You would wish to keep it?”

“I wouldn’t force this on you, if there wasn’t a reason but,” a pause as his tongue wets his lips, “yes.” Jim winces around blatant embarrassment as he asks, “Do you really think it’ll be so bad?”

Spock ignores the question, contextual alignment a priority over the Vulcan’s irrelevant preferences, “It will only grow stronger. I will be able to sense you with worlds between us, read your thoughts from across a room, your emotions with the slightest touch,” he needs Jim to understand the error he has made, the severity of consequences. He needs Jim to end this before foolish desires birth credulous hope, “I will know you _completely._ ”

“Is that what you’re afraid of?” The pitch of his voice high with surprise, “That I’ll regret this?” Spock offers, most tellingly, no response at all. “Okay then, let’s do this now,” Jim biting his bottom lip as he, curiously, begins to smile. “It was the very last day of grade 10 and my math teacher had a smart board that she had programmed to look, and sound, like one of those antique chalkboards,” confusion assaults his senses. “This one girl, Amy, was up there working out a formula and I was barely paying attention because it was calculus and who doesn’t get calculus? And all the sudden I got the absolute worst erection of my 15 year old life,” Spock feels the way his eyes widen at an alarming rate, Jim’s lips giving way to a toothy grin at the image he must construct. “I don’t really think it had anything to do with Amy, as weird as that sounds, I’m not sure it had anything to do with _anything._ But to this day I’m still worried that if I heard that sound again, I don’t know, I’m sure it was a teenage hormonal fluke," with a shrug. “I’ve never actually tested it because if it happened again then I’d be that guy that’s attracted to chalk and I don’t think I’m emotionally prepared to handle that.”

Kirk seems to wait, intentionally, until Spock finally recovers enough to ask as much as, “What—” before continuing.

“I told everyone that I wasn’t going to prom because I thought it was stupid but the truth was that I just didn’t have anyone to ask and didn’t want to go alone. I mean, I had friends, but not the kind of friends you pile into a limo with and it doesn’t matter who’s technically with who. You know what I mean?” Spock, most certainly, does not. “I figured if I was going to feel so alone then I may as well choose it.”

“I do not —”

“This one time I had a sneezing fit in class, at the academy, and I actually peed myself. I mean it was just a little bit, and it wasn’t like anyone noticed. I had been chugging water all day because Bones had given me this hypo which had this weird side effect of making me feel insanely thirsty for hours on end. I got stuck after one class going over a paper with the professor and had to run to the next lecture so that I wouldn’t be late for an exam and,” Jim shakes his head, “it wasn’t my finest moment.”

“I see what you are —”

“I’m not actually allergic to watermelon. I just don’t like it and that seems to really upset everyone so I just say that I’m allergic and they all believe me because I’m allergic to everything.” Kirk’s face scrunches up to one side as he adds, “It’s just weird tasting crunchy water. I don't get what all the fuss is about.”

“Jim —”

“I’ve never used the word, ‘whom,’ with any level of confidence. I’m still about 40% sure it just exists as a word to make people feel better about themselves for having used it.”

“Please—”

“I told Winona about you,” and that, at least temporarily, ceases Spock's protesting as shock rises in rank. “Well, she sort of guessed, but still,” one of Kirk's hands migrate to the back of Spock’s neck, cupping his hairline as his thumb trails over his point of his ear. “Apparently my brother is throwing me a now-not-so-surprise birthday party and Winona, my mom, said that I should bring you. It was kind of a joke? Or maybe it was a dare. But thinking about you there, with everyone, and me, it’s a nice image,” Jim’s fingers finding the hair at the base of Spock’s neck, running through it in such a pleasing way that he presses back into it, overcome. “There’s a lot more in there and it only gets worse. But it’s yours, Spock, if you could want it.”

_As if I could ever make you realize that desire’s depth. There have been moments, when we allow ourselves quiet, that my katra speaks of the lives it has spent with your soul. I have seen the dubiety that parting can bring to your eyes, felt a shudder in your spine from an innocuous touch, and I think you must, somehow, sense them too. I have wondered, when honesty reigns, if I have always found you in the macrocosm, or if there is a version of myself still out there, searching. I would forge through lifetimes for the reward of only one with you. He will not stop looking. I never would._

Jim’s mouth falls open on an exhale when Spock’s hands rush to his face, curving to the shape of Kirk’s jaw as his fingers bracket heated pink ears. Spock stretches his neck upwards as he tilts Jim’s face down, towards him.

The distance is miscalculated, lips close enough to brush as the Vulcan's voice plummets to a whisper, “My mind had been long ago made in the matter of you,” before encouraging Jim to angle his head just so, aligning them.

Jim’s mouth is soft, softer still than he had judged it to be, as Spock allows himself to admit the frequency of which he has imagined this moment. They breathe into each other, once, then twice before Spock’s press more firmly against Jim’s, leaning in as the Vulcan moves to stand. His hands skate down the line of Kirk’s neck and chest, sliding under Jim’s arms as Spock pulls him to rise in the too small space between the chair and himself.

Spock’s fingers trace the line of Jim’s spine, hesitating at the hem of the gold shirt, slipping under the fabric as Kirk pushes back into the touch in what he reads as encouragement. It forces a gasp out from Jim as Spock’s other hand finds the pathway to his jaw, threading backwards into his hair as Kirk’s face presses into the crook of Spock’s neck. The skin there is only marginally warmer than the human’s cheeks as they heat with the appearance of a blush. Spock knows Jim must be able to hear the way his heartbeat has abandoned his tried and true regulated Vulcan tempo, pulse accelerating as his fingertips follow the web of Jim’s muscles in search of the angles of his shoulder blade.

“I do love you, that wasn’t just conversational fodder,” forcing Spock to grant him space, away from the completeness of them in order to see. Jim’s pupils devour most of the cornflower as they dance from chin to cheekbone back to his brown. “I don’t know if Vulcans — if it’s common to express these kinds of things — I don’t know if it’s even necessary with bonds —”

Spock kisses him again, lasting long enough to feel a breath against his skin before retreating, thumb pressing against full lips to stop another tirade.

“I have learned that ‘common’ and ‘necessary’ are not always the means to happiness. Speak freely your emotions to me and I will safeguard them, k’diwa,” Jim’s lips try parting around his thumb pad only to be denied. “Taluhk nash-veh k’dular,” his native language is spoken in a deep, tender tone.

“If Talunk,” the word sounding arduous on Jim’s tongue, “doesn’t mean ‘love’ then you’re going to have a very disgruntled bondmate.”

The noun spoken in Jim’s voice gives life to something inside of Spock that he struggles to contain, the ferocity of it hitting his shields with delighted fervor.

“Forgive me then,” conceding to the desire of his mouth, a small smile developing in the left corner, “the meaning is ‘cherish’,” releasing Jim’s face only to brush a small section of golden hair back behind the rounded ear. “Though ‘ashau’ is not altogether inaccurate.”

Jim moves his head to angle his cheek back into Spock’s palm, his nuzzling bringing the Vulcan’s fingers together with his meld points. Both of them halt at the thunderous feeling of sparks, the pull of recognition, even more powerful than the already overwhelming sensation the finger kissing had kindled. He can not help but ponder what a proper meld with Jim would feel like. 

_Would I be strong enough to weather it when just the mere threat of one is almost enough to bring me back to my knees?_

Jim turns, lips finding the place where hand and wrist meet.

“Can you feel what I’m thinking now?”

There exists a timidity in the tone, one that has Spock’s fingers jumping away to safer areas without stalling for request.

“Retaining your privacy to the extent that I have has been a laborious task, though I am trying. Your shields are naturally weak and, I admit, that my own are compromised,” he starts pulling himself away from the circle of Jim’s arms, incrementally, “If I could take a few moments to center my mind —”

Jim surges back forward, pulling Spock down an inch to split the difference in height, foreheads coming together, the ghost of touch as their lips grow closer. The line of his nose presses along Jim’s, his Captain’s long eyelashes grazing against his cheeks as the cooler skin nestles into his own. The human gives into evident want, kissing Spock again with sudden fever, mouths moving against each other’s like waves against shorelines. Jim sucks Spock’s bottom lip into his mouth, biting it gently as it falls away, leaving the Vulcan to fend off a sigh.

 _“Keep… uncentered… if… kills us both,”_ Kirk's thoughts pushed towards Spock’s with his untrained mind.

The awe of Jim’s voice resounding inside of him leaves him grasping for words, giving the human enough time to add, “Don’t you dare center anything,” aloud, Spock assumes, as a security measure.

“Do not misunderstand, unless you concentrate I am only receiving a vague sensing of emotion from you. It is not like a mind meld where I would —”

Jim leans in, making them one again, lips forming a union as Kirk careens against his mouth. An arm reaches up, wrapping around Spock’s neck, as his injured arm finds a closer home when it slips under the front of the blue tunic, pressing against the thud of his Vulcan heart just below his ribs. A noise comes out of Spock, no less dignified than anything Kirk has crooned in the past hour, at the touch of cool skin on this sensitive place. It is worth the blatant exposure of his want for the way Jim appears wholly susceptible to it. Kirk’s tongue finds the seam of Spock’s lips, shuddering when they part so eagerly.

He can feel Kirk’s heart racing in time with his own, moaning into Spock as seconds pass with sliding tongues and grasping hands, other senses dulling against the backdrop of _finally._ Jim leans hard into the Vulcan, toes tired from such increased demand after days of unuse, shoving him forward into Spock by gravity as they give out. He is caught just as quickly, held tight as their tongues lose their initial reservations, grappling against one another’s until Spock’s finds the roof of Kirk’s mouth, burning a stripe down the middle of it.

Hips bucks in response, their lower halves coming together and a moan Spock is only 83% sure does not belong to him ends in a gasp when he feels the hardness of Jim pressing against him. Kirk stills for a moment, mouths hovering, before taking the surely greenening lip back between his own, sucking on it softly as he rolls his hips forward. Something untamed snaps inside of Spock, hand finding the small of Jim’s back and holding him in place as he rocks in, feeling the way his hot palm ignites against the human’s skin. The fingers in Kirk’s hair grip onto it tighter, pulling his head to the side as gently as he is able, making room for his mouth to find the flushed skin of Jim’s neck. Spock’s teeth graze over the curve of it as Jim’s own fingers flex in response, nails digging into the muscle underneath them.

“Want you,” Jim’s voice strikingly attractive in the off-pitch it has found. He nudges the side of his face against Spock’s, ears nestling together as he pleads, “Do you…?”

Spock untangles them with slow reluctance as he presses another peck to Kirk’s abused skin. Jim reaches out, chasing the heat, when Spock’s hand slides down his neck to flatten against his chest, holding him at a distance. His mouth is swollen, the rose in his cheeks enticing, as his lidded eyes skim over the Vulcan’s face. He has no doubt that his own appearance is no better composed.

_Tell me how this took so long, k’diwa? How could it be that either of us are only seeing this now when I can tell you, with honesty, that this physical display of disarray before you has been my mental state for far too long now. Do you know that I only need to think of you to be so affected? Do you know how beautiful desire looks on you?_

Spock raises an eyebrow as his fingers once again find the hem of Kirk’s shirt, the front this time and pulls at it. When no response is given, Jim’s eyes going wide as he swallows, Spock makes up his own mind, the shirt slowly lifting. One arm threads through first, then over his head, Spock overly gentle as he slides the fabric down the injured arm like Jim is a priceless, delicate, thing before the gold is deposited without ceremony onto the floor.

He leans down, mouthing the hollow of Jim’s throat as his fingers find the button of his pants, undoing both it and the zipper as his tongue heats Kirk’s skin. Spock’s palm presses into his abdomen, covering the trail of hair there and pausing, as he waits for an objection that he already knows will not come.

Jim’s hands manage to find Spock’s shoulders, holding him roughly as a thumb hooks over the waistband of Kirk’s boxers, fingertips sliding in and down to grasp him softly. A noise sounding more like a choke escapes him, knees buckling at the initial contact. Jim rights himself, managing to remain standing, even as Spock’s mouth works its way along the curve of Kirk’s collarbone, the Captain’s head tilting so that his cheek rests upon the top of the Vulcan’s head. Spock holds him lightly as he strokes him, the warmth of Jim in his hand, hard and wanting, is enough to make his own self throb, twitching against the tightness of his pants. His faint touch leaves Jim searching for more, muscles jerking as they thrust into the slow movement of loose fingers. The motion of his rocking hips and Spock’s gliding fist eventually shuffle down his pants and they fall to the laws of gravity.

S'chn T'gai Spock, while reserved in his sexual expression, is not wholly naive to the sight of nudity. His education in sciences has resulted in his seeing various genders of various species in various stages of undress. Furthermore, he has witnessed Jim topless in Starfleet issued gym pants which have somehow been designed to appear more indecent than the simple boxerbriefs that he is currently donning. There is something, however, that the privacy of this offers. This is in Jim’s own bedroom, with the lights dimmed and his eyes focused. This is Jim who apparently loves him, who has called Spock his own, and swallowed his sighs. He is grateful to still be standing, what with the sight in front of him.

Spock licks his way up to Jim’s jaw as he releases his cock on a whining groan from the human, using both hands to work the elastic over him and down to his knees before sending them to the floor with the rest of Jim’s clothing.

He pulls away, stating without request, as his teeth scrape against stubble, “Retire with me.”

Spock lets the whole of his palm drag across Jim’s lower abdomen, so gently he may have been able to pretend it was lacking in intention if it were not for the way his eyes traced their way along Kirk’s flesh.

Jim’s left there to watch as Spock walks away, removing his shirt and pants without words or added finesse, deposited in the laundry chute on his migration towards the bed. He turns to his human, naked and exposed for the first time in their extended courtship. He can feel his own hardness, erect against the tight replicated cotton, twitching at the way Jim is staring. Kirk’s tongue works his pink lips as his fingers squirm at his sides. Spock waits until Jim’s gaze migrates back up to his eyes before he raises an eyebrow in an amused, unsympathetic understanding as the Vulcan hooks his thumbs into his own underwear, sliding them down his thighs without breaking eye contact.

An impatient, _“Jim,”_ is enough to motivate the beseeched into moving.

He climbs onto the mattress as Jim finally finds the ability to carry himself over to the bed, crawling onto it opposite of Spock, meeting in the middle in another kiss. The tone is gentler than the ones that have come before it, the Vulcan somehow finding enough control to set a more languid pace that Jim seems keen to follow. Kirk’s current focus appears to be the new skin to track, his hand finding the sharpness of Spock’s left hip bone particularly fascinating, tracing the mountain of it as his tongue greets the sweeping waves of Spock’s in his mouth. Jim’s fingers trace the lower curve of the oblique muscle, following the trail to Spock’s olive flushed cock, wrapping themselves around it as his thumb sweeps over the darker head, causing Spock to hiss at the sensation of cooler skin upon his heated flesh. It feels overwhelming in a way he could not begin to express, whimpering instead into Jim’s mouth, foreheads crashing together as his hips pump into the touch on their own accord. Jim’s hand appears on his chest, applying pressure against his pectorals, pushing him backwards to lay him down. He at least has a clear enough mind to fight it, hand finding Jim’s own and removing it gently.

“Do you not want…”

He swallows the rest of Jim’s question in a closed lipped kiss.

“You are tired, ashayam,” even as his mouth finds Jim’s jawline, teeth and lips seeking out the skin his administrations have already blotched red and working them again to the song of sighs and moans. He knows if he were a crueler soul he could easily get Jim to beg for this. “Allow me to do the work.”

Like in all of their days, capitulation of command is not Spock’s goal in and of itself. He has made a home within the very concept of serving his Captain and this shall be no different, wishing to use the gift of control in order to succumb to Jim’s pleasure. He tries to write gentleness into his movements, an affection in the fingertips sweeping over Jim’s chest, leaving his shields behind so his bondmate may see, without question, the passion of his breath and the lust in his eyes. Jim leans forward, tenderly pressing his own lips against Spock’s open mouth before reaching into the drawer beside his bed, finding a tube Spock knows will be lubricant, and pressing it into the Vulcan’s hand. All before the human gracefully leans himself backwards against the pillows, arms and legs held open in lewd welcome.

Spock’s lips pick up where they left off, down the expanse of his neck to trail across his prominent collarbone, pausing when his fingers find the edge of the bandage on Jim’s arm.

Kirk reaches up with his other, palm covering a portion of Spock’s heated torso, “Ta’hey’ya,” a bad attempt at replaying the Vulcan word.

It comes out too throaty, too harsh, but it is close enough that Spock most definitely understands. He moves to cover Jim’s body with his own, lips finding the spot of Jim’s racing heart and speaking the word, “T’hy’la,” in repetition followed by, “Soulmate,” like an oath sworn into pink skin before mouthing his way down his trembling stomach. Kirk’s hands threads back into his hair, holding his head, shaking with the effort it requires not to direct as soon as Spock finds the trail below his navel, licking his way back up it once.

He opens the tube as he moves lower, Jim’s cock pressing into his cheek suddenly as his whole body seems to reel at the sound of its uncapping. His knees are bent stiffly as the muscles continue to fight against the desire to simply grind against him. Need is a particularly satisfying look on Jim and yet Spock finds the will to be merciful, taking the head of Jim’s cock into his mouth before swallowing him down. 

Kirk’s hips buck up into him with a, “Sorry, shit, you’re just so warm,” hissed out of Jim’s throat from where it lay twisted and bared at the head of the bed.

Spock’s own fingers squeeze the flesh of his thighs, sending the thought, _“The taste of you is pleasing, ashayam, as is your pellucidity,”_ towards the man below him whose whine confirms the delivery of the message.

His wet finger burns its path to the center of Jim slowly, making its presence known as warming thighs open wider for him, pushing back against his touch. Kirk’s hands flex on his skull upon entering, the gentle thrusting of his own hips pressing Spock in as deep into himself as his finger can reach on a groaned, “Fuck, Spock.”

He tongues the cock in his mouth as he continues to take it in, tongue caressing it on the release, waiting until Jim is all but grinding back down onto his intrusion before opening his throat up to the whole of him as he presses a second finger inside. The human quakes underneath him as his mouth returns to its prior pace, fingers slowly matching it as Jim’s opening eagerly makes room.

“Want you,” one of Jim’s hands moving down from the back of his head to awkwardly reach for the hollow of Spock’s cheek, their eyes remeeting. “I want you, please.”

 _“Soon, Jim,”_ Spock spreading his fingers inside of him.

A third is followed soon after when he can feel Jim reaching the line of craze, nails digging into his shoulder. Spock’s tongue works the underside of his cock as Jim takes the next finger in with surprising ease to join the others in their rocking. The organ in his mouth jerks as he once again finds the human’s prostate and caresses it to the sound of a symphony of moans. He moves faster, rhythm losing some of its original finesse as it gains credits in vigor, forcing a grunting gasp out of Jim each time he’s filled as his cock is swallowed.

Jim’s patience wears thin as his skin grows slick with sweat, heart racing, as he commands more than he says, “I may have never done this before, but I know my own body, Spock. I want you inside of me, for the love of god, _now._ ”

The surprise lifts his head suddenly, removing Jim from his mouth on a noise that has no right to sound so obscene, Kirk once against groaning, this time at the loss of heat.

“You have not done this?” His voice deep with evidence of the abuse of his throat, even as his tongue craves for the return of silken skin.

“Well,” Jim starts, almost shyly, “not _this,_ ” as his body clamps down momentarily around him, compelling the human to bite his lip in what could have been a humorous fashion if the tone were not being transitioned through the filter of Spock’s own raging libido.

“I should not have assumed that this was —”

The hand on his cheek squeezes as the other mirrors it, sliding to the angle of his jaw and gently tugging. He insists on an added moment to slide out of Jim, missing the warmth of him immediately, thumb pressing back against the openness of him delicately. Kirk, for his part, only raises his hips just slightly, offering Spock a better view, one that ignites something new inside of himself, fierce and profound, like the call of lungs for air.

“You should know by now, the unknown will always be at our welcome mat,” he pushes back against the thumb until Spock angles it back inside of him. He smiles at Spock, aiming for crude and charmingly lands on something much more mild and tender. His legs come up around Spock’s waist, hooking his hips as he pulls him. Spock relents, finally, crawling his way back up Jim’s body, “You Vulcans,” the human's tone softly teasing and impressively steady, “indeed, delight in creating problems where there are none. You desire to have what wishes to be given to you,” pulling Spock down to kiss against the corner of his mouth, “the deal is done.”

Spock has no ego left to boast of as he grinds down into Jim, their cocks aligning against Kirk’s stomach, the Vulcan’s hard and wet with pre-edjactulate from nothing but his own desires and the tastes of Jim. His hands pull the face under his into an artless kiss as Spock thrusts down to meet him twice before forcing himself away to kneel between Jim’s legs, his own hand shaking where it lays on the human’s abdomen.

He applies the contents of the tube before aligning himself with Jim’s opening and pressing forward as his other hand skims over the softness of Kirk’s inner thighs. He moves slowly despite Jim’s body’s willingness to have him, the sensation of being shrouded in his beloved causing his heart to jolt, the sight below him doing no favors in regulating it. 

_You are gorgeous in the way that people describe the setting of the sun and fauna covered hillscapes. To an extent that is righteously unfair. You are beautiful in a way that makes me feel, Jim._

Jim reaches for him, mouth gaped and eyes half lidded, pulling at him and Spock falls down into his space willingly. Their breathing coordinates as he reaches full insertion, the entirety of him encircled in the completeness of his bondmate. He waits until Jim’s lips finds his in a fervent kiss, the nails on his back pressing in as Kirk rotates his pelvis impatiently, before Spock complies. The momentum gradually increases, inhaling as they come together, exhaling as they slide back. Jim’s legs wrap once again around Spock’s body above him, pulling him in harder and faster, the hand on Spock’s back holding on the way one clings to the edge of a precipice. They give up the battle of their mouths struggling to meet, foreheads pressed together instead, noses bumping as Spock is suddenly filled with a longing that does not belong to him. 

He responds, _“Want to see, want to Jim, want to see you, please.”_

Perhaps it is the bond or perhaps it is simply how well he knows Spock but Jim, instantly, understands.

He reaches for Spock’s hand where it resides between them, currently wrapped around Jim’s cock, painstakingly prying it away. It is tugged upwards, delivered to the side of the human’s face, and pressed against the skin there. Spock’s hips falter, raising up on his elbow to see the whole of Kirk’s expression.

“Do it,” Jim is breathless and pleading, eyes just as desperate as the tone of his voice. Spock can feel his own eyebrows come together, unsure. “T’hy’la,” and his tongue manages a closer pronunciation this time, “want to see you, _please,_ ” mirroring Spock’s imploring that remains echoing in the both of their minds.

A shift occurs, and a drop, followed by the feeling of opening a window on a day ripe with summer. It is warm, and easy, stunning in its simple beauty, it is _James._ Different than seeing, or touching, but an utterly new sense of his perfection. Jim meets with him, somewhere in the depth of them, pulling closer to wrap them both in the light of this. At the corners of his mind he feels Jim’s self consciousness flair, minutely.

_“Don’t know… will… can… learn… ”_

_“You are doing perfectly.”_

He tries to convey the longing that he has felt for this, at the joy of Jim’s edges blurring into the margins of his own self. His need to touch, to feel, to know, over the roaring pleasure he thinks is still from the physical plane.

 _“Can feel… so much… can’t… gonna…”_

_“Give into, Jim. Let yourself go.”_

He concentrates on the feeling of his thighs thrusting against the back of Jim’s own, the smell of their shared space, the breath and the heat and the slide of their bodies as one. On the sparks in his brain and the tastes on his tongue. On the feeling of belonging in his mind as Jim orgasms, on the body clenching around him, igniting his own.

On, _“I love you, I love you, I love you.”_

 _“T'nash-veh, t'nash-veh, t'nash-veh,”_ mine.

 

* * *

  

Spock has nearly completed the task of bathing when he feels the beginning of anxiousness coming from the bond’s allocation in his mind from where he stands inside their bathroom. He hurries, depositing the dirtied towel into the laundry chute, before making his way back into the bedroom where he is greeted by the sight of Jim, nakedly spread across his mattress, obviously searching for him. The noise Spock conjures in the form of a sigh manages to ring as both contented and annoyed, even to himself.

“You have developed a new habit of waking in my absences, no matter how brief I attempt to make them.”

Jim looks around the room, landing on Spock’s clock and realizing, with shock on his face, that an hour has disappeared since he was last conscious.

“I fell asleep? The last thing I remember was feeling you…” Kirk pauses, as if solely to bring attention to the sheepish smile that wins the lower half of his face, “what happened?”

“A meld is often an intense interaction, even for those who are members of a telepathic race and are therefore more familiar with the practice. I can not honestly say that I was left unaffected by it,” feeling the way his own eyes crinkle at the corners even as his mouth remains flat. “Your previous exhaustion did you no favors."

Kirk snorts. “Fair enough. Though I feel like I owe you an apology. I swear, I’m usually much more of a cuddler and less of a roll over and snore kind of guy.”

Spock reaches the side of the bed, brushing a portion of hair out of Jim’s face before placing a kiss to his cheek. The human leans into it, face pressing into the side of Spock’s as he tries to align their lips even as the Vulcan skirts away.

“I am not concerned with it. It has given me the chance to clean the both of us,” Spock states, pushing his voice to remain factual.

Jim clearly notices, for the first time, the lack of mess. There is an ache there, a soft one, as the Vulcan remembers tenderly wiping away their essence from the skin of his bondmate’s stomach and thighs, gentle and quietly as not to rouse his human. 

“Do you desire for me to spend the duration of the night?”

Kirk’s words of acceptance must boil too quickly, getting caught in his throat as he nods instead, a meager, “Yes,” just barely making it out.

Spock understands regardless, graciously ignoring Jim’s facial rendition of a floundering fish to quietly walk over to Jim’s dresser.

“I assume you do not mind if I borrow sleepwear from you?” Spock asks despite the fact that he is already pulling out multiple sets of clothing from the drawer he knows them to be in.

“I doubt anything assigned to me will fit you very well but you’re more than welcome to it,” the offer fairly irrelevant considering that Spock is halfway through putting the pants on, his hips doing their best to keep the wider waistband up. The black undershirt is no closer to fitting, causing Kirk to let out a laugh at what much be a fairly amusing sight. “That frame of yours has always had a way of making mine look pudgy no matter how much time I spend on the mats,” Jim stares down at himself, the argumentative look Spock summons to his own face cutting Kirk’s self admonishments off at the pass. 

“I find the shape of you to be entirely pleasing, Jim.”

Jim blushes again at that, for some reason. “Well, either way, you can put the rest back. I’ve never been a big fan of pajamas even when I wasn’t in bed with a co-sleeper who doubles as personal space heater,” Spock’s fingers inherently clench around the clothing in his hands as he realizes Kirk’s meaning. Jim must see the shock on his face as he retraces his steps, quickly, “Not that I’d refuse to. I’ve sweated for less enjoyable reasons than this.”

Spock can feel the green rising in his cheeks as he continues to examine the fabric in his hands, “I apologize, sleeping nude is not common practice for my people. Even with bondmates the idea of so much skin contact is considered extreme outside of sexual congress,” he looks back to Jim, captivatingly bare. “I wish for you to be comfortable.”

“I’d be thrilled to sleep in a parka on my own floor if you were here, Spock,” he holds his arm out until Spock closes the space between them, near enough to reach up, hand curling over the trap of Spock’s shoulder. His thumb traces the line where black fabric meets heated skin. “I’d go borrow a miniskirt from Rand if it’d make this easiest. Though I suppose you’d have to think I had the legs for it?” Spock’s eyes flare at the thought, unsure if his interest is a purely scientific one. “I solemnly swear, I’m just happy to be here.”

He moves to grab the clothing from the crook of Spock's arm the exact moment the Vulcan comes to a conclusion, hesitation yielding to interested acceptance, as he pulls them away from Jim's reach before placing them on the bedside table.

Jim wonders allowed, “Should I be offering to move?” As Spock makes his way back around the bed, “Or would even suggesting a Vulcan could have something as illogical as a preferred side be considered —” When his musing is interrupted by the sight of Spock removing the shirt he had just put on. Kirk’s protest begins, “You don’t —” 

“You have been more than amenable in situations where my alien nature does not align with yours. I, too, am open to compromises,” the Vulcan stating a logical case.

Kirk watches him crawl onto the mattress, sliding his way fully to the middle before his arm stretches out against the pillows behind Jim.

“The compromises I’ve made have been way more fun.”

“I must disagree, Captain,” allowing himself the moment as Jim makes a dramatic display of curling into his side, “this is not without its own benefits,” his warm fingers roaming over Kirk’s cooler skin until they, once again, find the perimeter of the shiny gauze as his arm closer tighter around Jim.

“Bones says the dressing is fine for the night,” Jim says, in a comforting tone. “He said it’s going to be okay.”

Spock’s head nods against Kirk’s, fingers moving away from the material with obvious effort before replying, “I will help you with it in the morning.”

They both know that Jim could most likely accomplish the task by himself, but the human leaves the observation unsaid as Spock’s words were clearly not spoken in offer, let alone in suggestion.

“Think you could sneak me up to the Bridge afterwards?”

The muscles involved in smiling tighten against Jim’s hair, though Spock’s is able to keep his voice monotone as he says, “No, I do not.”

Jim takes a moment, cheek nuzzling into the chest below it, cooling the Vulcan skin. Kirk’s fingers find the patch of hair at the center of Spock, a feature he had once stated that he had always been envious of. Though now, Spock notes absently, where Jim had claimed jealousy there only radiates yearning. 

He breathes slowly as both his respiratory and cardiovascular systems return to their normal ranges despite the feeling of Jim against his skin. It is a sensation that could easily engulf him whole. Spock's mind shifts, taking in the rest of his senses. The sight of Jim’s thigh strewn across his own hips, the smell of Kirk’s shampoo, lavender and mint, strong in his sweat damp hair. The ship underneath them is sure and steady, the bond fulfilled and forcible.

“Is that how it’s going to be?” Jim jests. “You tell a man that you cherish him and just as quickly leave him to wallow unattended. Is that how deep your adoration runs?”

Spock’s arm curls tighter around him, long fingers trailing up from the base of his neck to disappear into his hair.

“ _‘Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.’_ ”

There resounds the thudding of two hearts, the whispering of two minds, a beat for the melodic hum of duel engines to follow.

“I really have gone and stuck myself with a sap,” Kirk complains, pressing his lips to the skin that lies beneath them as Spock, knowing a disguised compliment when he sees one, commands the lights to zero percent.

“If it pleases you to think so, Jim.”

 

* * *

  

_“I must tend to your arm before my shift begins. We have put off the cessation of sleep as long as possible, ashayam.”_

Jim blinks against the return to reality, the concept of waking to a thought not belonging to him obviously jarring though seemingly accepted as pleasant if the smile on his face is to be believed. Jim had turned away some time in the night only for the Vulcan to chase him, Spock repositioned himself behind the human with his arm draped possessively over Kirk’s middle. Now, his Captain turns towards him, burying his face back into his chest.

“What time is it?” The questioned mumbled from the human’s lips into his skin.

“It is currently 07:34.”

“Mr. Spock, I’ve never known you to sleep in,” the tease losing much of its insult with the addition of a kiss pressed into the base of Spock’s throat.

“You have finally given me just cause to,” he suggests instead of the more honest admittance that he has been awake for several hours, unwilling to part ways.

Contentment is radiating from Jim’s mind as Spock realizes the truth has been heard regardless of being left unspoken. He reaches down to grab the Vulcan’s hand, Kirk bringing it up to his mouth in another kiss against Spock’s palm.

When Spock mentally sighs at the affection Jim pushes his hips towards him, ripe with broadcasted intentions as Kirk moves his weight, without thought, onto his injured arm. He flinches against the pain, flipping quickly onto his back, as he shoots Spock a guilty smile.

“Come,” Spock says, quietly. “We must take care of that before I leave.”

“I have to go down to medbay for another round of the regenerator anyways, if I go early enough I’m sure keeping yesterday’s bandage won’t make much of a difference,” even as Spock's legs curl over the side of Jim’s bed.

The Vulcan makes his way across the quarters in just his borrowed pajama bottoms, looking back to Jim as if in afterthought as he enters the bathroom. Jim is close behind, peeking in hesitantly when the doors open automatically, wearing the pants he had been offered last night. His torso is left out to seen, muscular compared to lines of Spock’s lean body, and he leaves his appreciation for the sight out to be made known.

“Sit,” is all Spock says, clearing away Jim’s clutter of products next to the sink before removing, what he knows that Kirk has come to call, a sickbay goodie bag from the lower cabinet. “Dr. McCoy warned me you would be reluctant about this despite its obvious necessity. He instructed me to remind you that an infection will only decrease your rate of healing, increasing your time under his care.”

“Oh were those his exact words?” Jim chuckles, even as he hops himself onto the counter, “I think the term you’re looking for is, _‘cry baby,’_ Spock.”

“There has always been a distinction between common Standard and the doctor’s personal vernacular. I had assumed this was an instance of the latter.”

“Assumed, or hoped?” Jim snorts.

Spock works the edge of the bandage with his fingers, picking at it until the adhesive finally gives and he is able to pull it away from Jim’s skin. It is not as bad as it could be, as it would be if Leonard, he easily admits, was not so talented at his job. The wound had been deep, the old fashioned bullet embedding itself into the muscle beside the bone. The skin is angry for it, still slightly swollen and red along the line of the stitching. Spock had only just barely seen what it had looked like, before.

“Hope is a human emotion,” Spock’s states, frankly, as he continues to stare at the wound long after Jim does, finally relenting as his head leans down, lips pressing against the worst of it.

“ _‘The miserable have no other medicine but only hope’_ ,” Kirk quotes.

He runs a cloth under the warm water, Spock soaking it thoroughly before asking, “Does this cause you misery, Jim?”

Jim winces as the material is pressed against him, hissing out, “Amply.”

“Then it seems I owe an apology to Leonard,” Kirk quirks his head, in question. “His choice of wording seems to have been accurate afterfall.”

Jim finds the energy to feign insult before his whole face shifts to delight upon realizing that, on his perch, he sits a couple inches taller than Spock stands. He makes an exaggerated point of leaning down to press a kiss to the Vulcan’s sleep disheveled bangs.

“Bold words coming from all the way down there. How’s it feel to be the runt?”

“It feels temporary,” Spock replies without giving Kirk so much as a passing glance as he moves to hang up the small towel on the hook by the sonic.

He gets nearly an arm’s width away before Jim reaches out, fingertips grazing the tattoo where James’ name is recorded into his skin. Spock turns to assess him.

“It’s a shame the Konatians have such horrible handwriting. Though, in fairness, I suppose penmanship is hard to translate on an emotional level.”

The cloth is hung, a quiet smile giving the right to live in brown eyes as he turns back towards the sink.

“It is not inked in the handwriting of the priest,” the Vulcan admits, pulling out a jar antibiotic cream and uncapping it.

“Well I know that it isn’t yours, that was half of my problem,” Spock raises an eyebrow, prompting him on. “I kept trying to look it up on the computer but between working on memory alone and that chicken scratch the system couldn’t spit out even a guess. And considering that Uhura makes typing look sloppy in about a dozen different languages — Who the hell’s handwriting is it?”

“Do you remember my _attempt_ at teaching you Vulcan?” Jim nods as Spock’s fingers rub the ointment over the wound, “While your verbal results showed a fair amount of progress, your writing skills,” he pauses, looking for a kindness in his word choice, “had room for improvement.”

“And where in this insult do you answer my question?” Jim jokes back.

“I have kept several of your practice papers,” there is an interval as Spock pulls the replacement dressing out of the bag, peeling its packet open and depositing the wrapper in the recycler. “I admit to looking at them often and to having less than educational justifications for doing so. It is a fond memory,” allowing Jim a moment to be dramatic as he presses the bandage into place. “I believe the handwriting to be yours.”

Jim freezes in mid breath as he stares back at Spock, Spock who can feel the pressure building up inside of himself as he waits for the response to his revelation. It is illogical to be so affected by such a thing after all the past half day has held, to worry at what is such an innocent thought after Jim has woken up bare in Spock’s arms. To assume meaning to expression when that has gotten them resolutely nowhere in the past.

“Why d’you think they chose mine, instead of your own?” Jim, at last, asks.

Spock’s hand curls up and around the human's neck, long fingers trailing up to play with the hair at his nape, forcing Jim to look at him.

“A mark is made by the claiming, not by the claimed,” he states with plainness, adding only when he feels hesitation through the bond, “I have not belonged to myself for awhile now, Jim.”

Spock feels Jim in the margins of his own mind and lays himself out bare, sure and sincere and not yet wholly unafraid. Jim takes it in, legs wrapping around the small middle of the Vulcan, tugging Spock closer until he’s so near that he can see the way Kirk’s eyes lose their focus of him.

“Well I’ll tell you, Spock, you’ve once again landed yourself on the bad end of a deal,” he pauses, noses bumping together, staring down at Spock’s mouth in badly hidden want. “I’ve negotiated myself one of the universe’s finest and in return?” He gives in, just a press of lips, “You’ve only won the half shambled human you see before you.”

Spock gives in for him, leaning in and kissing him deeply, holding Jim close, as the seconds pass with the meeting of tongues.

“I shall make due,” and by the time Jim can relocate the context of that statement, lost in a heart rush, Spock has moved on. “I regret that I must leave for shift start,” pulling away from their space despite the best sulking Kirk can manage.

“You could just call one in?” He offers, sliding back off the counter and following Spock back into his quarters.

“Lieutenant Sulu has spent more than enough time operating above his rank these past few days. It is only fair that I relieve him of the Captain’s duties at this time.”

The childish pout only deepens on Jim’s face as the expanse of Spock’s green skin disappears beneath his uniform.

“The offer of me accompanying you to the Bridge still stands, you know?” Jim playfully offers.

The responding look, though Jim’s persistence is admirable in its own right, is admonishment and mirth finding a home in an eyeroll.

“If you should wish to take lunch in the cafeteria instead of in quarters I believe even Dr. McCoy can be made agreeable,” more proposal than statement. “You are welcome to comm me on my personal line should you require me in some way.”

“I’ll miss you too, Spock.”

A corner of his mouth lifts sharply, held there as he makes his way to the door without stating a rebuttal.

 

* * *

  

He is only 2.6 hours through his shift when his personal communicator receives a message from McCoy. His anxiety is muted with the knowledge that should anything be wrong with the Captain the information would come through official lines yet still finds himself unwilling to wait until their shift break for lunch. 

“What the hell did you do to him?” Reads the first text, more coming in after it. “It looks like he had an orgy with a group of octopods. Is there a spot on his body that isn’t covered in hickeys?” Quickly followed by, “Dear God, don’t answer that.”

“I assume everything to be sound with the Captain’s check up, Doctor?” He texts back.

“No I just thought I’d harass you about this first.” Immediately afterwards, “Yeah, Spock. He’s going to be fine.” There’s enough of a pause that Spock nearly puts the communicator back into his pocket before another notification resounds. “Who knew you, of all damn people, would put the _‘tramp’_ back in ‘tramp stamp’.”

Discreteness is particularly difficult in the openness of Jim’s chair and yet, he thinks, Nyota is the only one who manages to notice the greenness of his cheeks.

 

* * *

  

It takes until Jim is standing next to Spock in the empty turbo lift on the way to alpha after two days of Doctor McCoy issued exile that he realizes, with alarming clarity, how exceedingly blinded he has been. He stares at the reflection of them in the metal door wondering, exactly, how their ignorance has survived for this long. Their arms are touching from shoulder to elbow, hips so close they could bump on a sway, Kirk so near that Spock can smell that lingering spice on his skin from the use of Spock’s soap. Only, this is not new to them. Each morning they stand like this, pressed together in the ample space, so crowded together that he had once noticed Jim’s switch to caramel flavored coffee based solely on the scent of his breath. In the evenings they had only been worse, he recalls. Jim tired from a long shift in the chair, leaning into the Vulcan against the jolting of the lift and Spock, greedy after spending so many hours with a calculated distance between them, had only ever encouraged it.

He meets the reflection of Jim’s eyes staring back at him, biceps pressing together as the human rocks into him. Jim is smiling, cheeks causing his eyes to squint, as the Vulcan allows his eyebrow to lift in prompt.

Jim juts out his chin, gesturing towards the image of them, “Just a little curious how neither of us noticed by now obvious we are,” expressing the same speculations that Spock had just wondered silently.

Spock takes a moment to look again at the pleasant sight, finally turning to Jim beside him, offering an, “Indeed," as the back of his hand is allowed to brush upon Kirk’s, knuckles weaving between his.

He can feel the way Kirk’s mind focuses on the contact, centering his thoughts to the connection of skin as he forces with considerable concentration, _“Kissing in… lift? ...I… bad influence… you,”_ as his fingers squeeze Spock’s.

The chuckle at his own joke is cut short by a look of foreboding on the Vulcan's face, Spock letting a vague sense of both apology and humor leak through the mind link before finally edging his hand away.

“Prepare yourself, Captain,” Spock finally says in a warning tone right as the hum of the lift begins to quiet upon their arrival.

Jim has likely been expecting some form of enthusiastic greeting on the Bridge. After four days in medbay, followed by two of ordered rest, it would be more unusual for the professionalism not to dip, momentarily, upon his return. Whatever Kirk had been anticipating clearly did not, however, prepare him for the sight before him when the lift doors open.

The alpha crew is standing in wait, a badly choreographed, “We missed you, Captain!” that Spock does not participate in erupting from the rest of the group with such imprecision that Jim, forgivably, laughs at it. A laugh that is only fueled when he takes in the wider scope of the Bridge.

A few balloons, shockingly bland in their coloring, are floating around the room haphazardly. Lieutenant Sulu is holding a cake, baked by the helmsman, which Spock is almost certain is inscribed with, _‘Sorry that you almost died,’_ though he cannot be completely sure from this angle. Yeoman Rand is holding a vase filled with nearly every type of alien flower the First Officer could confirm that Jim was not allergic to, bright orange marigolds shoved in haphazardly alongside them when Spock had reminded her, belatedly, that they were the Captain’s favorite. The only saving grace of the display is a beautifully made banner with handwritten lettering, framed in stunning scrollwork around the edges, that reads, _‘Welcome back, Jim!’_ hanging over them in the doorway.

There is also the blue toilet paper to consider, which his bondmate has finally noticed, amusement plain on his face.

Uhura must see where his attention has been lost to as she says, “You can thank our Navigator for the lovely streamers.”

This is clearly not the first conversation they have had about it and Spock is immediately grateful for having a worthy excuse to have not arrived early for the actual assembling of the decorations.

“You ask me to rayprogram replikators to make straymers and I did,” the Russian pleads. Spock remains busy watching as Jim bites down on his lip, an effort to keep himself from bursting back into a fit.

“I asked you to _add_ streamers into the replicators. You just edited the toilet paper to be blue. _Just_ blue ones,” Uhura scolds, her arms crossing as she stares down their youngest.

Ensign Chekov, most clearly, misses her point. “Da! Like the Kaptain's eyes.”

Despite his best judgement Spock joins the conversation, offering in defense of the ensign, “The hue is quite similar, if that was your goal.”

Nyota’s annoyance is resolutely made his, “Oh of course you approve of them. It was your idea to use the leftover balloons in the first place instead of just making new ones.

“We had a considerable amount leftover from the impromptu wedding the ship orchestrated for Ensigns Ch'chiqil and Sh'shithan 17.3 months ago,” he replies, still not quite understanding her indignant response to the recommendation.

“We still have so many because no one wants to use them! Nothing says ‘we care’ like old, unused, grey balloons,” dripping with sarcasm.

“The color silver is very important to Andorian culture and was therefore chosen at the time. I did not give an order for more not to be made, I merely suggested we conserve resources since additional decorations would be redundant,” he raises an eyebrow towards her. “Additionally, the Captain has been made suitably aware that I am pleased by his return, with or without, what you deem, suitable adornment of the ship,” which does, at least, makes her smile.

“It looks great guys,” Jim finally interrupts, “Spock, thank you as always for being a beacon of unreasonable rationality,” walking over to a beaming Pavel, Kirk palming his shoulder as he adds, “And thank you, Chekov for your contribution. I’m sure you reprogrammed the reprogram after you were finished so the whole ship isn’t replicating this _wonderful_ addition to the Bridge for their bathroom usage.”

At that the Ensign grimaces, mumbling a, “Right avay, Keptain,” as he scurries off to the computer to the sound of Jim’s chuckling.

“Alright, we’ve had our fun. Sulu, can you get that cake secured somewhere before Bones finds out about it?”

Sulu nods with a smile, “I’ll be right back, Captain.”

Everyone else takes the cue that actual work is starting as they make their way to their own stations. Spock watches as Kirk catches Uhura’s eye as he points to the banner, mouthing a, _‘Thank you.’_ Her face softens around an unspoken, _‘You’re welcome,’_ which turns into an eye-roll after Jim dares to wink.

It is, overall, a good beginning to what will most likely be an otherwise dull shift. The seventh day of orbiting a planet does not normally provide much work to be done on the Bridge. Though, he thinks, that monotony may seem more appealing in the light of what the concept of ‘interesting’ had supplied them with the beginning of the week; the vision of the proper person being back in the Captain’s chair a compelling enough sight to ease the tedium alone.

Spock joins Lieutenant Sulu in familiarizing himself with newest submissions of exotic succulents the ground team has entered into the system. Jim makes it known that he is listening in, supplying the occasional comment between catching up on paperwork when a call sounds within the Captain’s pocket from what, Spock believes, is his personal comm.

Jim looks as if he is going to simply mute it when he face twists into confusion upon seeing the screen, answering it quickly instead.

The person on the other end says something before Jim can even get out a hello.

“Yes?” Kirk looks over his shoulder to where Spock has already turned completely in his direction, eyebrow poised in obvious concern though there is not yet reason to be. “Do you — Should I put him on?”

Another unheard reply.

“Okay,” Jim says, “but a reminder, all of alpha can hear you,” and suddenly the audience has quadrupled.

“Spock?” And the Vulcan’s second eyebrow raises to mirror the other in surprise at the sound of Leonard McCoy’s griping voice. “Despite keeping this call off the record, I want you to know that my objection to the brass about this decidedly wasn’t. I had no choice but to sign off on it, I don’t like it any more than you will.”

“To what are you referring—” Spock gets out before the communication board chimes, silencing him.

“Incoming video communication, Sir. Confirmed source: Admiral Barts, Captain,” Uhura announces in a measured tone.

Kirk does not even give himself the opportunity to bid Bones goodbye before closing the communicator, rehousing it in his pocket and responding, “On screen, Lieutenant.”

“Admiral Barts, to what do we owe the pleasure? New assignments don’t usually warrant facetime,” suspicion clear in Jim’s voice. “You must be bearing a particular brand of bad news.”

Barts chuckles, still taking in the decorated status of the Bridge that, from the look of his face, Jim is only now realizing must be entirely visible. “Your crew seems quite enthusiastic about having you back in business, Kirk. We all are,” continuing when Jim doesn’t bite at the offer of small talk, “I assume you’ve been updated on Lui’s progress planetside?” He nods, still waiting. “Well, I’ll spell it out for you then. They’ve all but signed the acceptance papers on—,” he pauses for a moment, thinking to fill Jim in, “they’re changing the name —”

“As I implied, Sir, I’ve been thoroughly briefed. I’m aware that the planet formerly known as Ghedeen is being renamed to TrosLene, a combination of the Ghedian and Curren words for, ‘peace,’” allowing himself to smirk at the slight surprise in Barts’ expression. “I assume we’re being held here for a reason, what do you need us for?”

“We’re sending you back down to the planet,” and Spock has never been more pleased that the science station lies beyond the margin of the Bridge camera, his criticism elaborately displayed in a physical sense. “Just think of it as a token gesture. Shake some hands, accept some apologies, take a few photos. We just want this whole thing to feel, to everyone, like it’s getting tied up without any loose ends.”

Jim’s head twitches on his neck, just slightly towards the Vulcan as if he can hear the way Spock’s whole body braces as he responds, "I understand, Admiral. When do you need me down there?”

“Signings happening tomorrow at noon, have your shuttle crew ready your transport by 08:00,” hand raising to his call button as he readies to sign off, tacking on with a smile, “and Kirk? Stay out of trouble, that’s an order.”

“Loud and clear, Sir,” as the screen fades back to their view of space.

The silence that fills the room only seems to thicken as Jim stands, refusing to look at his First Officer as he walks past him, announcing, “Sulu, you have the con,” adding, “Spock, meet me in my quarters,” even as the Vulcan has already risen, following closely behind him.

Spock stares resolutely ahead in the lift despite Jim's best attempts at getting his attention, watching the way Kirk goes through the entire cycle of his facial arsenal in his peripheral. He forces his side of the bond to go as quiet as it has been in the past three days, the Vulcan throwing the best of his shields up to give him time to silence the worst of his unrest before assaulting Jim with it. Jim who suddenly tries to reach out to the barricade, conjuring a convincing mental picture of knocking at the meeting of their minds. It surprises Spock enough that he turns to look at him, letting bare hints of hurt and shock slip through before closing the link again.

“Spock —” he tries, arm extending out in the limited space.

His target of a clenched hand is pulled away before even the brush of a touch, tucked out of Jim's reach behind the small of Spock's back.

Kirk tries, again, “Spock, please —”

“I wish to speak of this matter in private,” stabbing on, “Captain,” as if it has the duel purpose of a cuss word.

The walk to Jim’s quarters is not any more pleasant, for either of them. Jim ends up waving off the expressions of several crewmembers who nervously jump out of the way at the sight of Spock’s current facial rendition of an otherwise lengthy verbal assault. While Spock, silently, is back to calculating pi in order to keep himself this meager version of calm.

When they finally arrive, the door may not even be closed when Spock begins with, “Captain, I must express several objections to this.”

“Jesus, Spock, don't. You aren’t speaking to your Captain right now, you’re speaking to your bondmate and we both know it.”

Spock’s shoulders drop as he swallows, the air of resilience dropping with them as he reminds himself the safety of self he has in current company. “You should not go.”

“There’s no threat anymore, no more than anywhere else. With the way things are going down there at the moment I’d be more likely to get hurt tripping over a shoelace on the Bridge. Logically, I know you understand that the conflict between the nations is over and that the Federation was never the target to begin with. It was just a misunderstanding.”

His face hardens at that, anger brewing in the line of his mouth. “You nearly dying was not a simple misunderstanding, it is a fact.”

“They thought the Ghedians were coming back with more explosives during their highest holiday. The entirety of their people were in those quarries, Spock, _children_ were in there. Their guards were just trying to protect them from an inaccurately assessed, but understandably so, threat. It wasn’t malicious.” Adding, almost pleadingly, “They were aiming for the president.”

“They missed,” and despite Spock’s animosity, or perhaps because of it, Jim’s gentle smile slowly wins back his face.

Kirk closes the distance between then, reaching up to place a hand on each of Spock’s shoulders. He leans in, the Vulcan readily bending his neck so that their foreheads can rest against one another’s. He can feel the buzz from the growing connection, so much stronger than it had been even a couple days ago. Jim, himself, has already begun mastering it at an impressive rate, proving himself adaptable once again as he sends out confidence out in waves, assurance and affection in their own measures as his thumbs reach past the collar of his shirt, stroking the skin of Spock’s neck slowly.

“I will be fine, love, I promise.”

“As Chief Science Officer I should accompany you on the away crew.”

“No you most certainly will not,” Spock’s mouth open, pulling back to object. “I understand that the point of this little endeavor is to make amends but I don’t think your attendance will be aiding in that.”

“I am able to control —”

“I know you are,” both feeling the tell of the fib. “But I’m okay with going, I’m okay with being there. But you? You shouldn’t have to see that place again. I’ll bring the entire security team, I’ll go in a bulletproof body suit, I’ll vid comm you every 5 minutes, but you having to live through that again?” Jim shakes his head, “It’ll be better for us both if you’re here.”

Spock doesn’t move, not right away.

_I fear for you where there is no reason, I am not so lost not to see this. I can still feel the sand of that place, grating between our skin, as I tried to shake you back to life. Kaiidth, I know, I believe it to be true, but I do not know if I can forgive them for this._

Though his thoughts were not given direction, it is clear that his bondmate must hear him. The human nods in understanding, fingers tight on his skin. Spock leans in, granting Jim the kiss he is clearly asking for, pushing firmly into Kirk’s lips before releasing him.

“Think we can both manage to keep up appearances and go back to pretending that you’re not a worrywart?” The bond ensuring that Spock is unable to lie behind a simple neutral expression, choosing instead not to respond at all. Jim’s grip wanes on his shoulder, slowly sliding off as Spock turns away, realizing once the door opens that the Captain is not following him. He turns towards the middle of the room, face in question. "Once you’re back upstairs will you send down Rand, please, Mr. Spock?”

He continues to look back at Jim, curiously. Unwillingness to question his Captain in front of the crew walking the halls winning the battle as he nods, leaving.

Spock wastes no time, upon his arrival on the Bridge, “Yeoman Rand, the Captain requires you in his quarters,” putting an unreasonable amount of effort into appearing wholly informed on the matter.

She turns to him from her work at the engineering station, looking slightly surprised as she asks, “Now, Sir?”

“It appeared to be a time sensitive matter,” intentionally choosing his words broadly.

He is barely in his seat before Nyota is bowing from her own station, quietly asking, “First lovers’ quarrel?”

Spock refuses to look at her, knowing her smile simply by the tone of her voice. 

“There was no cause for a quarrel to take place. The Captain is my superior officer and of sound mind. He is more than capable of making decisions regarding the ship and his own well being. He merely wanted to confer with me about any reservations I may have on the subject.”

“I’d say he sounds just as whipped as you but none of that is newsworthy, I can’t believe you two have managed to get worse ever since —” he looks over at her, sharply. “Oh that’s right. We’re still pretending someone would actually find this surprising. Though, even you have to admit, eventually someone else may notice that the two of you keep leaving the same quarters in the morning,” he continues to stare at her. “Did I not mention that Lieutenant Jordon saw you two?” She looks, if possible, more pleased than she sounds.

“There are numerous reasons why I could have been in the Captain’s quarters before shift start this morning that have nothing to do with the simple minded gossip of the crew.”

“Uh huh. You guys are going to be caught red handed and voted cutest couple before you ever get the papers through the admiralty and we both know it.”

Uhura is still attempting to elicit a response from him when the Yeoman returns, laughing to Lieutenant Sulu on the other side of the Bridge, stating loud enough to be heard from the science station, “Oh you know me, the only thing I love more than an updo is a good shenanigan.”

When he looks back to Nyota she only shrugs, returning to her prior task of reciting love poems to him at an ever increasing volume.

Spock, quite adamantly, searches for work to be done.

 

* * *

  

Jim, and the initially assigned away team, had now been grounded for a total of four planetary rotations. A few members of the admiralty have joined them, along with members of two other ships, as they begin the laborious task of bringing the TrosLeons back to a sense of order. It was never a small feat, even when the addition involved a more developed species, to set up the beginning stages of aligning their educational and medical systems with that of the Federation. Many of the planetside crew members would either be staying on for a longer duration, or replaced by other officers looking for non-ship stations, as the newly conjoined government and overall infrastructure solidified. Despite the interruption of their mission, and the cause for the admiralty to step in, Starfleet had reinstated the Enterprise as lead on the process of systemization. Which meant that Spock, working as both Acting Captain and Chief Science Officer, had been made particularly busy with the itemization of all the new environmental reports while maintaining his temporary command duties.

In short, staying in constant contact with the away team had been a necessity. Processing incoming information, coordinating assignments between different ship crews, rectifications of translator’s errors all had to be completed with as little transition time as possible, lest they begin to backlog in the most sensitive time of the merger. Jim has always been a more than adequate source of both delegation and organization in chaotic times, choosing him as Spock’s point person for contact between the Enterprise and TrosLene had been a purely logical one.

So Spock had not been worried, and had not had the opportunity to be should he have developed the capability. However, he will admit to a sensation of relief from the bond upon seeing the Captain appear on the transport pad before him 109.7 ship hours after his departure in the same manner.

Jim appears in need of sleep, the skin making up the expanse of his delicate under eyes the same darker hue they bare upon his too often 12 hour shifts. The blue colored uniform is a jarring sight on him, though Spock had been made aware of the lack of laundry facilities on the planet. In response, the research vessel the Inquiry had provided all of the ground team’s clothing needs as a temporary solution. He can also see from the distance of nearly five meters that there is a substantial amount of dirt under Kirk's fingernails and upon the knees of his pants, most likely resulting from his morning spent classifying rock specimens. Spock had only prioritized Jim’s reports to his own station instead of passing it onto the greater science department due to his unique personal comprehension of desert geology.

His hair is disheveled, his smile tired, and his posture in dire lack of formality. Yet Spock, quite illogically, has already begun his theory on how Jim could have grown so much more remarkably visually pleasing in such a short expanse of time.

“Welcome back aboard, Captain. Ship is functioning optimally.”

“Good to be back, Mr. Spock.”

Spock follows him into the hallway and into the, unfortunately crowded, lift.

“You’ll have to forgive me, I’m a little off on shift rotations. Are we still in alpha?” Jim asks.

The question is a plain one, though the underlying one clear to Spock as well.

“Beta began 34.2 minutes ago, Sir.”

“Ah, thank you, Mr. Spock. While I believe the Federation will benefit amply, should we allow ourselves to learn, from the TrosLeons’ ability to look into the future with a forgiving nature, I don’t think anything will ever quite compare to the addition of Vulcan precision.”

Kirk bends his wrist just so, the cool back of the human’s hand pressing into his own.

_“I have to shower and change back into commands before a conference call with Barts and Lui in which I’ll try my best to get them to release our parking brake. Can you meet me on the observation deck in an hour?”_

Spock attempts to shift his pride through the link only to find shock at the sight of it. Despite the time apart it has substantially strengthened, twisting in knots he doesn't believe possible to unwind. His heart threatens to lose rhythm as a warmth not originating from his circulatory system finds roots below his ribs.

_“I find your request agreeable. I shall see you then, ashayam.”_

The lift whines its way to a stop at deck 5, Kirk looking to Spock as the halt of it jostles everyone, slightly. “Thanks for keeping the ship in one piece in my absence, Mr. Spock.”

Responding, despite their company, “Thank you for remaining in one piece in your absence, Captain,” as Jim makes his way to the front to the open door, their fellow passengers not quite subduing their reactions to what Spock would never admit to be a joke.

Jim turns as he makes it out into the hall, meeting Spock’s eyes with smiling lips and squinting eyes, a _“Missed...You…”_ making it to him over the distance between them before the doors close.

He decides to spend the next hour in the observation deck. In the unlikely event that Jim will be done prior to the estimated time he does not want to keep him waiting. The days down on the planet had been long and physically taxing, especially for someone not yet fully healed from injury, and it is imperative that the Captain be able to rest as soon as possible. His eagerness to see Jim, he admits, may also be a relevant factor.

It is still nine minutes until their agreed upon meeting time when Jim arrives, justifying Spock’s decision.

Kirk points to the padd Spock has just put down on the table, open still to an article. The topic of which are the most fascinating mineral specimens the formerly Currens had more than kindly allowed the science department to scan in the quarries, known to them as Youluren, the quiet place. The opening of the page had just happened to be a holo of a young homeworlder smiling at Jim as he holds one of the rocks up to the sun, reflecting the light onto his face in a pleasing way as he grins. Spock had noticed, upon seeing it prior to the Captain’s arrival, that the issued science uniform had done more than a satisfactory job of bringing out the blue in his bondmate’s eyes.

“We can print it out, if you like. Care to hang it above your bed?” Jim teases him, smirk blazen as it pulls higher on the left side of his face.

“I find that measure a fairly unnecessary one to take, or have I incorrectly assumed that you will be there to admire in person?”

Jim blushes at that and Spock reminds himself of all the benefits boldness can grant as he rises from his seat, walking over to his human. Kirk remains where he is, head tilting up before Spock’s hands even make the migration to frame his face. The kiss is soft and slow, the hardness of their time apart coming out in calculated movements and gripping fingers. It is Jim who makes the move to press in closer, pulling immediately back in a hiss.

“Uhhh…” he begins, staring at Spock with a bashful smile, biting his lower lip as he insufficiently attempts to hide his guilt.

“You are injured?” His displeasure at not knowing this sooner is left to be blatant.

“Not exactly,” human eyes skirting from his own for a moment as Kirk finds his words. “God, I was so damn confident about this when I came up with it and here I am acting like I’m about to ask the head cheerleader to the winter formal.”

“I am not —”

Jim laughs, “Don’t even get me on the tangent of you in one of those outfits,” he takes a deep breath, a step back, allowing a foot between them. “Don’t judge me okay? I already know what you’re going to say about me being a lump of emotional illogicity.”

Confusion reigns for a moment as he studies the way Kirk’s face comes to a conclusion, Spock barely getting out so much as a, “You are safe with —” before he is cut off by the sight of the golden hem being tugged up to Jim’s chest, his other thumb tugging down the black waistband an inch.

Blue eyes do not move from his, he can feel them burning into him as his own stare at the exposed abdominal skin. He reaches out without thinking, fingers touching the tender looking flesh there. In the margins of his vision he can see Jim’s face cringing, nose scrunching in discomfort, as he jerks his hand away.

“No,” Kirk says quickly, letting go of his pants to pull his hand back in. “It’s just been through a lot is all, the only appointment Rand could get me was right after beam down,” he looks _smug_. “Didn't think I had any surprises left in me, Spock?” The Vulcan refuses to answer. “It’s fine, really, though I suppose rubbing against my shirt all the way here didn’t help, but I knew I wanted to show you,” he barely stops to breathe. “I know it isn’t the same, they’re not mind readers or anything, TrosLeon tattooing is basically the same as Earth’s but I thought that, maybe, it could still mean —”

Spock’s finger sweeps, as gently as possible, over the stacked colors of green that make up the word, _‘Home,’_ in the spot just under Jim’s ribs where a Vulcan heart would be. “This is written by me,” it is a question, his mind reeling too wildly to assign proper inflection.

Jim, of course, understands.

“You weren’t the only loser who kept a bunch of those practice papers,” and it is the insecurity in the accompanying laughter that crumbles Spock’s shields.

There is a shift in the irises of his eyes, a sway in his balance, and a hard swallow around all that Spock has just unleashed on him. Gratitude, awe, and a love that burns deep into his katra flow over Jim as the Vulcan unbinds them, one by one, steadying the human in the physical world as his eyes begin to fill.

“I apologize if it is too overwhelming, t’hy’la, but to leave you to doubt would be inexcusable,” Jim shakes his head, a tear escaping as his mouth gasps for a shaking breath. “I was under the impression you did not feel the normal sentiment to this word that your species attaches to it," as his hand frames the tattoo, palm absorbing the heat of it.

Jim shakes his head, again, another swallow, another deep inhale, and a steadier exhale than the previous ones.

“That’s just the thing, Spock. I don’t know if I do,” Spock forces himself to wait. “I think of rolling cornhills, bay sunrises, the familiarity of that chair… I think of Earth, of Starfleet, of all the inbetweens we’ve been, and none of them feel like home, not really.”

Spock nods, tempering his rising confusion, “I am aware of this.”

“But you, love. I think of you and your snapping side eyes and your small smiles and the beauty that sunlight brings to your eyes and I just,” Jim forces himself to look at Spock, wide and open, hand coming up to cool the heated skin of his Vulcan neck. “I know that someone could fling us to the furthest planet in the darkest solar system of an uncharted galaxy and in the moment before panic set in I’d know it would be okay because you were there.”

“That belief is not factually sound.”

Jim smiles, leaning forward to press his face into the other side of Spock’s neck. Lips and cheeks pressing against his skin as his arms come up to wrap around Kirk's back.

“No, it isn’t,” Jim concedes. “But I don’t think homes are. Homes are safety and roads’ ends and love but they’re not, Spock, they’re just walls and roofs. And you’re just a being in which my heart has claimed residency.”

“Your heart, Jim?” The Vulcan asks, allowing his lack of confusion to flood through the bond, pressing his cheek down against the soft hair on Jim’s head. “I do not think it wise to keep such a vital organ outside of one’s chest cavity.”

“Oh? Is that your official scientific conclusion, Officer?” Forcing Spock to grant him enough space to see each other. “I wish you had filed this opinion, earlier. It’s far too late for anything to be done about it now.”

“Perhaps,” Spock leans in, kissing him once, “you would be willing to provide storage for mine in the absence of your own?”

Jim barks out a quick laugh, happy and sharp, as a grin pushes his cheeks into his eyes. His abused lower lip is pulled back between his teeth, doing nothing to abate the smile, as his gaze falls to Spock’s lips, rising back to Spock’s eyes in a series of blinks.

“Why, Mr. Spock, is that a smile? May I dare to challenge your belief that you are still so unaffectable?” Jim teases, faces pressing together, his eyelashes blinking against Spock’s cheek.

“When honesty and you collide, I should have always claimed to be made undone.”

Jim breathes into his skin, mouths meeting as noses brush and sighs fill the room. Their bodies sway in a rhythm they both somehow know, tongues meeting, fingers finding the points of skin as if they are being beckoned there.

“ _Such_ a fucking sap,” Jim whispers against Spock’s mouth, harsh on an inhale.

And Spock, logically, cannot find any evidence to claim otherwise, burying his refusal to agree in another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You made it!
> 
> So I may need my own server with all the people I have to thank.
> 
> My beta, Maddie over at [SpocksGotEmotions](https://spocksgotemotions.tumblr.com/) for enabling me to be able to lie to you people about knowing how to spell all while slaying your own RBB.
> 
> My girlfriend, Caitlyn, for just... not tossing me out a window. This quite literally would not have gotten done without your support.
> 
> Sarah! [Perphesone!](https://perphesone.tumblr.com/) For being the abyss that I continually screamed into. (16th, girl).
> 
> Literally everyone, and by that I mean everyone that would listen, that allowed me to rant about this over the last 6 weeks.
> 
> Again, AGAIN, to my wonderful artist who deserved better, [hanguhns](https://hanghuhns.tumblr.com/). I don't have any answers for you, I'm sorry, you're perfect.
> 
> And, as always, to the FBI agent assigned to my IP Address - oh, the 3AM fun we've had together. Send me your psych bills. I love you the most.
> 
> Until next time you can throw tomatoes at me at [GrumpyBonesey](https://grumpybonesey.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.  
> LLAP <3


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